the gate is open
São João Batista do Glória · Minas Gerais
Handmade cheese, country breakfast and time to stay. Our gate is open to you.
A real place
Between the Serra da Canastra and the table in our house, milk becomes cheese and every visit becomes a conversation. That is how Quintal do Glória began, and it is how we like to receive people: with no hurry, with fresh coffee and cheese cut on the spot.
Everything here happens in the same backyard. The cattle yard, the dairy, the ageing boards and the three suites are a few steps from one another. Guests see the work up close, taste what comes out of it and, if they like, sleep in the middle of it all.
What you will find here
01 · The dairy
Two milkings a day, at 5 a.m. and 4 p.m., raw milk from our Jersey cows, natural pingo starter and at least 14 days of ageing. There are seven cheeses, with bloomy and smooth rinds, and each one passes through our hands from the tank to the wooden board before it reaches your table.
02 · Stay with us
Three suites in a building of their own, in the dairy's yard, each with a veranda facing the mountains. Country breakfast is served in the dairy, with milk and cheese from the house. Guests share the day-to-day with us, from the morning milking to late afternoon.
03 · Come visit
The gate is open every day, no booking needed. You can see the dairy, look at the ageing boards, taste the cheese of the day and take cheese and doce de leite home. For a guided tasting or a course, arrange it with us a few days ahead.
A day at the quintal
5 am
The day starts at five, with the cows coming into the yard for the first milking. The milk goes by hose to the dairy tank, is tested and, still in the morning, receives the pingo and the rennet. Once the curd sets, the hand work begins: cutting, salt, moulds.
7:30 am
At half past seven, country breakfast is on the table in the dairy, the same place where that milk becomes cheese. Bread, biscuits, cake, free-range eggs, fruit and the house cheese. Guests in the suites have breakfast in the middle of the work and, if they like, watch it up close.
4 pm
In the afternoon, at four, comes the second milking. Between one and the other, the cheeses move to new boards in the ageing room, visitors arrive without an appointment and the conversation stretches out on the veranda. That is how the house receives people: sharing the day-to-day.
When you arrive
01
Bread, biscuits, cake, free-range eggs, fruit and cheese, served in the dairy.
02
The first milking is at 5 a.m. You can watch the milk turn into cheese.
03
Natural pingo starter, pressed by hand and aged slowly on wooden shelves.
04
No tarmac nearby. At night, only the cattle and the whole Canastra.
The timeline
In 2018 we closed the shop that had supported our family for twenty years. It was the end of one thing and, without knowing it yet, the beginning of another.
1998
The building-supply shop opens in Glória.
2015
Uncle Célio's five pé-duro cows.
2016
The first cheese.
2017
The dairy is ready.
2018
The shop closes. The first two medals arrive.
2020
We join Aprocan.
2024
Glória joins the Canastra Cheese GI.
2026
The three suites open.
A little of life here
Come to the backyard
Come and visit, order a cheese or just drop by for coffee. We like people.
