The New Wisconsin Cheeses

Roelli Cheese's flagship product is Dunbarton Blue, an unusual blue-veined cheddar. So ingrained is cheddar production in Wisconsin that Chris Roelli kept his blue-cheese project a secret from his family for months.
 

By Janet Fletcher
 

Wisconsin's dairy industry is emerging from its commodity cheddar reputation. Until recently, even cheese enthusiasts couldn't have named many artisan Wisconsin creameries or cheese makers. But now, small-scale specialty production is booming, new cheeses have actual brand names and some of their creators are practically rock stars. One entrepreneur has even designed a line of boxed note cards showcasing these cheese-making celebrities.

"We are experiencing an exhilarating renaissance in small-batch, artisanal cheese making," says Marilyn Wilkinson, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, a nonprofit organization funded by the state's dairy farmers. "The phenomenon is contributing to the diversity and stability of the entire dairy industry in Wisconsin."

Here, we look at some of the dairies that are a key part of the changing scene.

Carr Valley Paves the Way

The Dairy State's evolving image owes a lot to Sid Cook of Carr Valley Cheese Company, says Jeanne Carpenter, founder of Wisconsin Cheese Originals, an educational and promotional organization. "He was really the one who made it cool to make a signature cheese, different from what anyone else was making," says Carpenter, who blogs about Wisconsin cheese at cheeseunderground.blogspot.com.

Carr Valley's heap of blue ribbons for original cheeses such as Cocoa Cardona and the sheep's milk Marisa surely motivated other Wisconsin creameries to innovate. Many observers also point to the inspiring critical and commercial success of Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Wisconsin's Uplands Cheese Company, which took Best of Show at the American Cheese Society competition the year it debuted. (Pleasant Ridge has since repeated the feat twice.) The cheese made headlines not only for quality, but also because cheese maker Mike Gingrich insisted on producing it only seasonally, from the raw milk of grass-fed cows.

"Mike was so instrumental," says Steve Ehlers, proprietor of Larry's Market in Milwaukee. "He proved that somebody could do it on a small scale and win awards and make some money. People saw possibility."

The Industry Model Evolves

Wisconsin has had a dairy industry since the late 1800s, but it was never grounded in farmstead production, says Carpenter. Instead, most Wisconsin dairy farmers pooled their milk at nearby cheese plants, built at crossroads every three to four miles. "That was as far as a farmer wanted to haul milk in cans, on a wagon, with two horses," she continues.

Refrigerated trucking changed all that, and dairies consolidated. By the time Chris Roelli of Roelli Cheese graduated from college in 1991 and prepared to enter the cheese business his immigrant great-grandfather started, the prospects were too grim to continue. Roelli's father, who was struggling to make a penny per pound on commodity cheese, shuttered the plant rather than watch his son fail. It took 15 years for Chris to persuade his father to try again with a different business model, one that dramatically favored quality over quantity.

The Roellis refitted the old plant and reopened in 2006 with less than one-tenth of the capacity of the original. Roelli Cheese now makes primarily cheddar, plus cheddar curds for cash flow, but its flagship product is Dunbarton Blue, an unusual blue-veined cheddar. So ingrained is cheddar production in Wisconsin that Chris Roelli kept his blue-cheese project a secret from his family for months.

The revolution underway in Wisconsin extends to livestock, too. The state now leads the nation in numbers of dairy sheep and dairy goats, adding diversity to its cheese offering. The Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative, producers of Dante, and Hidden Springs Creamery, are gaining notoriety for Wisconsin sheep's milk cheese, a category that LoveTree Farms, with its Trade Lake Cedar, had almost to itself for years. LaClare Farm is among the state's up-and-coming artisan goat cheese producers. Evalon, the farm's raw–goat milk Gouda, recently took top honors at the U.S. Championship Cheese competition.

Wisconsin's Dairy Business Inno-vation Center, launched in 2004 with a Congressional earmark, also nurtured the state's artisan sector. The nonprofit DBIC has provided free technical and marketing assistance to more than 100 dairy entrepreneurs—"an opportunity for these cheese makers to retool," says Steve Ehlers, who is on the DBIC board.

New Varieties Grab Attention

Mixed-milk cheeses are a trend gaining traction in Wisconsin, says Carpenter, as they appeal to consumers who dislike the tartness of some goat cheeses. Creations such as Carr Valley's Cave-Aged Mellage, a three-milk blend, are "like a gateway drug for artisanal cheese," says Carpenter. "They slice off a little bit of the tanginess."

Until recently, the state's washed-rind category was "completely boring," says retailer Ken Monteleone, who owns Fromagination in Madison. But the success of Crave Brothers' washed-rind Les Frères and Petit Frère has cracked that door open. One cheesemaker, Jon Metzig of Union Star Cheese, is working on a cheese modeled after Gubbeen, the Irish washed rind; the new Rush Creek from Uplands Cheese, a washed-rind cow's milk beauty, turned heads when it debuted last fall.

"The response to Rush Creek was phenomenal," says Monteleone. "We had a waiting list the minute the cheese was released. It never made it into our case."

Amid many undistinguished cheddars, Bleu Mont Dairy's Bandaged Cheddar is demonstrating the heights this cow's milk cheese can reach. Aged in an underground cave of cheese maker Willi Lehner's
own creation, this wheel highlights Wisconsin's potential to reclaim the lead in flavor.

Janet Fletcher is the weekly cheese columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of Cheese & Wine: A Guide to Selecting, Pairing and Enjoying.

This article was featured in the June 2011 issue of Specialty Food Magazine.
See other articles in this issue here: June 2011 Specialty Food Magazine.

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