cheeseunderground beppino occelli, cheese, cheese tour, italy, wisconsin cheese originals

On Location: Beppino Occelli in Valcasotto, Italy

Before traveling this week to northern Italy, I was already a big fan of Beppino Occelli butter, made in Italy and available in American in select specialty stores. But I never realized the extent to which the company has transformed an alpine community once in decline into a real “cheese village,” aging rare Langa and Cuneo mountain cheeses using traditional Old World methods I assumed were long lost.

After driving two hours from the Village of Bra up a series of mountains through tinier villages full of people who looked at our bus like we were from outer space, our group arrived at Beppino Occelli in the hamlet of Valcasotto. In 1976, Mr. Occelli began restoring the community’s buildings into cheese aging facilities, and today, the community is home to a world-class underground affinage facility, restored flour mill, retail shop and restaurant.

Felice Costardt, a young affineur, was generous enough to give us an hour-long tour of the extensive aging cellars, which are truly underground rock cellars that look exactly like the cobwebbed hand-hewn rock rooms below the farm house in which I grew up. Humidity in the cellars is controlled by gravity-fed, pure spring water transported through a series of wooden troughs (pictured below), while each room is temperature controlled via more modern air in-and out-take methods.

Felice is in his 20s and is one of five full-time affineurs at Beppino Occelli. He came to the trade of aging cheeses by accident, after being hired as a chef by Mr. Occelli. After gaining more than 100 pounds while working in the kitchen, he begged for a different job, and began to work in the aging cellars, caring for the cheeses and learning from the previous “cheese master.” Today, it is nearly impossible to believe the young man once weighed 300 pounds. “This job suits me much better,” he said.

The first cheese we learned about was Cusie, a Beppino Occelli original, which takes its name from the local dialect and means “that which there is” or as Felice put it: “What’s in the cheese?” It  refers to the fact that Cusie is made with whatever milk is available, and can be a blend of cow and sheep’s milk or cow and goat’s milk. After production, it is aged 45 days in barrels filled with grape skins and then placed on wooden shelving for 2 months to age.

When young, it is turned two to three times per week and is then moved to a second cellar with a different humidity level, where it is aged another two to four months. Here, it forms unique molds on the rind, ranging from brown to white to orange. It is flipped once per week. It is then transferred to a third cellar for six months or more, with a lower humidity level. At each stage of the aging, different types of wooden shelves are used, ranging from apple to pear to cherry wood. Felice mentioned he never uses chestnut wood, because the wood is rich in tannins and would stain the cheese with dark spots. At a final age of 18 to 24 months, before being sent to market, Cusie is vacuum cleaned and stamped.

Several more cheeses are aged in the maze of underground aging rooms, but my favorite was entering the Castelmagno di Alpeggio DOP cheese aging room, which contained a large manger of dried hay – yes, dried hay in a cheese aging room. The cheese is unique in both its production method – the curds are crushed, broken twice, and then pressed into molds – and also in its aging practice, in which it attains its characteristic flavor of aromatic mountain herbs from absorbing the aroma of actual dried mountain herbs in the aging cellar.

As if this weren’t impressive enough, Felice explained that in ancient times, the rock-walled room in which we were standing was the basement of an inn, and housed the animals of its guests. So the manger does not seem out of place to the folks aging cheese there, but it certainly seemed out of place to Americans used to sanitary rooms with stainless steel floor drains.

Following the cellar tour, we were treated to an amazing lunch and cheese tasting at Beppino Occelli of the following cheeses:

  • Tuma dla Paja: this soft and creamy mixed milk cheese sports a white, wrinkled crust with an aroma of hazelnuts. In Italian legend, at the end of the harvest in the farmhouses of the Langa, it was customary to place a fresh ‘tuma’ to mature under straw, or “paja” in the Piedmontese dialect. You can occasionally find this cheese in the United States, as it was named the best cheese at the 1997 Fancy Food Show in New York.
  • Toma del Monte Regale: made from raw cow’s milk, this soft cheese has tiny holes in the paste and is milky and buttery. Think Taleggio without the stink. Yum.
  • Valcasotto Il Formaggio Del Re: in the past, Valcasotto farmers would offer their cheeses to the royal castle in exchange for the use of the meadows. Tradition says the square-shape of this cheese came about because it perfectly fit into the saddle of mules for transport to the king’s palace, and its intense (read: stinky) scent reminded the king of the sun and the fragrant grass of the pastures.
  • Ocelli in foglie di Castagna: produced from goat or sheep and cow’s milk in quantities that vary according to the availability of the season, this cheese is left to age for about a year and a half. The wheels are then wrapped in chestnut leaves which imbue them with a strong flavor. Interestingly enough, some wheels used to be wrapped in tobacco leaves, until the company was forced to put health warnings on the cheese label about the risk of using tobacco. Thanks for nothing, label nazis.
  • Escarun: the rarest of all cheeses invented by Beppino Ocelli, its name means “little herd.” Made from the milk of sheep and cows grazing the highest pasutres of the Alps of Cuneo, the cheese sports a thin, dimpled rind and finely grained, crumbly texture. Each Escarun wheel is branded and numbered, almost as a unique piece of art. This is the largest piece of cheese pictured in the foreground, next to the spinach, below.

Of course, no tasting at Beppino Occelli would be complete without butter! And I’m pretty sure we ate our weight in the gold stuff.

Thank you to all the wonderful folks at Beppino Occelli for a truly remarkable experience. I will be searching out your cheeses from now on in the United States!

Next up: Making & Tasting Tallegio on the mountain top of Vedeseto, Italy

All photos by Uriah Carpenter.

    cheeseunderground anna landmark, cheese, goat cheese, Landmark Creamery, road trip, Sarah Pinet, Victory Hill Farm

    This One’s for the Girls

    This past week has been full of good news from women I love.

    First, some of you may recall that three summers ago, I took my daughter on “the last mother/daughter road trip before my daughter starts to hate me because she’s a teenager and I’m her mother.” I’m so glad we took that trip, because as any parent of a teenage girl who looks 21 will know, the past three years have been full of slamming doors, broken curfews, smashed hollyhocks (which had the misfortune to grow directly under the bedroom window of which she routinely snuck out), and of course, boys. And more boys. Did I mention boys?

    In good news, my daughter is now almost 17, has settled down a bit, and seems to be past most of the rocky spots, except when it comes to driving fast and furious (she’s one ticket away from having mom as chauffeur) and I’m hoping (fingers crossed) we’re on the road to a really good relationship. In fact, when I mentioned this might be the last mother/daughter adventure we take because she’ll soon be going to college, she informed me she would never be too busy to take a road trip with her mama. I’m taking that as a very good sign (again, fingers crossed).

    Landmark Creamery Nuage Noir.
    Photo by Anna Thomas Bates

    The second good bit of girly news comes from Anna Landmark, who this past week quit her day job and launched Landmark Creamery (woot woot)! Anna’s been working to attain a cheesemaker license since earning the 2012 Wisconsin Cheese Originals Beginning Cheesemaker Scholarship.

    She”s now making her sheep’s milk cheeses at Cedar Grove Cheese full-time and has reached the stage where she’s ready to start getting her cheese into the retail arena. She’s even taking orders from individuals through her website, www.landmarkcreamery.com. At the moment, she’s only selling in the Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago areas, but will hopefully be able to ship nationwide by next March.

    Congratulations, Anna! You go, girl.

    Sarah Pinet with her teenage doelings.

    The third bit of girly good news comes from Sarah Pinet in western Nebraska. When Sarah found out her favorite mother/daughter duo were staying in a cabin a mere three hours north of her farm, feeding the “wild” burros in Custer State Park, she messaged me and invited us for a visit.

    So we trekked down to the picturesque Victory Hill Farm and hung with Sarah, her husband, Lee, their three children, 39 milking goats, 12 doelings, two sows, one boar, three piglets, two calves, two horses, one pony, two dogs, four cats, numerous chickens and two kittens that I had to persuade my daughter not hide in the backseat and take home with us.

    Meadowlark Reserve

    Sarah is making a whole line of goat’s milk cheeses, including fresh and flavored chevres, feta, a 6-month cheddar she calls Meadowlark, Beer Cheddar (washed in Fat Tire), a gouda named Goldenrod, and my favorite, a 2-year gouda named Meadowlark Reserve.

    We got the full tour of the milking parlor she designed based on Anne Topham’s set-up, the creamery, based on Diana Murphy’s make-room (see a pattern of Wisconsin-inspired cheesemaking here?) and the barnyard, complete with three giant pigs which promptly climbed out of the mud pit, shook every bone in their body, and completely splattered Avery and me with dark oozy gooey chunks. With a look of horror on her face, Sarah immediately started apologizing and shepherding us into the house to clean up, to which my daughter proclaimed: “That was awesome!” Ahh, that’s my girl.

    The offending pig.

    So all in all, I’d say it was a pretty good week for us girls. A road trip with my daughter, a week away from my desk, and a cooler full of cheese to put in the fridge when we got home. Win-win!

    cheeseunderground american cheese society, bleu mont dairy, cesar luis, cheese, dreamfarm, martha's pimento cheese, nordic creamery, sara hill, Savory Spoon, willi lehner, Wisconsin cheese

    On Location: ACS in Madison

    Well it’s official: the 30th American Cheese Society annual conference and competition is now on the books as one of the biggest (and do I daresay best?) cheesy shindigs in the history of cheese nerd conventions. Ever.

    With nearly 1,000 cheese geeks from across North America descending upon Madison, Wisconsin this past week to talk, eat and sell cheese, most everyone is now on their way home or has made it to their final destination with their bellies full of cheese and their briefcases full of business cards. And let me just say that after spending the past 15 months planning 32 seminars, 5 tours, numerous special events and a grand Festival of Cheese featuring nearly 1,800 different cheeses for the tasting, co-chairs Bob Wills, Sara Hill and I are ready for a nap.

    But before I nod off, let’s share a few photo highlights of the week.

    Here’s my cheese-sister-in-crime Sara Hill after being inducted into the prestigous Guilde Internationale Des Fromagers. Check out the website – it’s in French – so you know it’s important. Sara has worked 30 years in the cheese industry and deserves this honor. Congrats, Sara!

    Next, let me be the first person to tell every retailer in the nation that you need to carry the new Savory Spoon Panforte, which debuted at Saturday night’s Festival of Cheese. Featuring locally sourced cherries and honey, along with the traditional nuts which made this 15th Century Italian dessert famous, the Door County, Wisconsin version crafted by Janice Thomas can be cut to order or sold in small, gift wooden boxes sourced from France. Two words: super yummy. Contact eatpanforte@savoryspoon.com to order.

    Willi Lehner and his Third Place Best in Show Bandaged Cheddar and Big Sky Grana (for the first time ever, the same cheesemaker tied himself for a Best in Show ribbon) – may have (rightfully) stolen the show …

    But probably the happiest cheesemaker to win a ribbon may have been Martha Davis Kipcak maker of Martha’s Pimento Cheese. When Martha’s Pimento Cheese with Jalapenos was announced as the second place winner in the Cold Pack Cheese and Spreads with Flavor Added category, she almost couldn’t stand up in shock. But you should have seen her face when the announcer proclaimed she had also taken FIRST in the category with her original Martha’s Pimento Cheese. For someone who’s been in the food industry for 15 years, but only making cheese for less than a year, this is a well-deserved honor. Congratulations, Martha!

    Before the conference proper started, ACS goers had their pick of five different tours featuring Wisconsin dairy farms and creameries. I had a blast planning and leading the Driftless Tour of Wisconsin Sheep and Goat Dairies, visiting Dreamfarm in Cross Plains, Hidden Springs Creamery in Westby, and Nordic Creamery in Westby. With a local-foods lunch catered right on the farm and a perfect blue sky, this particular tour showcased the best of Wisconsin.

    Thanks to Sarah Bekkum for leading the tour at Nordic Creamery!

    Thanks to Brenda Jensen (first in line!) for leading us through her amazingly beautiful dairy sheep farm and creamery.

    And thanks to Diana Murphy for showing us her goat farm and creamery!

    Of course, there were the seminars. This being Wisconsin, we wanted to plan some not-so-usual tasting sessions, so we brought in experts from the University of Wisconsin to lead a fluid milk tasting …

    … and the first-ever cheese curd tasting session!

    Of course there were also more traditional seminars, such as a 90-minute educational session on the flavor profiles of Comte.

    My favorite event is always the Meet the Cheesemaker, where this year, 70 cheesemakers from across the nation and Canada lined up their wares for show and tell. Of course some cheesemakers, such as Cesar and Heydi Luis are more photogenic than others. Say cheese!

    The weather could not have been more perfect to welcome members of the University of Wisconsin marching band to the Monona Terrace rooftop, where the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board threw the mother of all opening conference parties, complete with a toe-tapping band, picnic-style food, mounds o’cheese and of course, free beer. This is Wisconsin, after all.

    The conference proper wrapped up Saturday night with the annual Festival of Cheese, where Best in Show winner Winnimere from Jasper Hill Farm was featured (thanks to Mateo for having three cases overnighted to the festival so everyone could have a taste)!

    And where tables of blue cheese …

    And smoked cheese …

     
    And, well, every kind of cheese filled a room to hold 1,200 attendees.
    Many, many thanks to the hundreds of volunteers, ACS staff, cheesemakers and all attendees for helping make the 30th ACS so memorable. See you next year in Sacramento, California, July 29 – August 1.

    cheeseunderground cheese, cheesemaker, john umhoefer, monona terrace, Wisconsin cheese, wisconsin cheese makers association, world championship, world championship cheese contest

    Behind the Curtain at the World Championship Cheese Contest

    The World Championship Cheese Contest came and went in Madison this week. With it, hundreds of industry volunteers, cheesemakers and international judges unloaded, unboxed, unwrapped, inspected, labeled, opened, sniffed, tasted, spat out, rewrapped, reboxed, and reloaded 2,504 cheeses one by one, wheel by wheel, wedge by wedge, all in a quest to find the best.

    Mission accomplished. While the Dutch and Swiss again took top honors (the World Champion was Vermeer, a lowfat Dutch Gouda made by FrieslandCampina – yes, that’s right, the frickin’ Dutch beat us with a lowfat Gouda), Wisconsin cheesemakers did well overall, earning gold medals in 30 of the 82 classes.

    Held over the course of three days at the Monona Terrace, the World Championship Cheese Contest is one of the best cheese events held in Wisconsin. That’s because it’s expertly executed by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA), which has been running the contest since 1957.

    Once held in obscurity in a butter cooler in Green Bay, the contest now takes center stage at a sprawling convention center in the state capital. Today, the WCMA, led by executive director John Umhoefer, calls on more than 200 volunteers to help run the three-day contest. Many – perhaps even most of the volunteers – are Wisconsin cheesemakers who happily carve three days out of their own cheesemaking schedule to schlep around cheese made by others from around the world.

    From Monday morning through Wednesday mid-day, two distinct bodies of cheese people fill the voluminous Exhibition Hall at Monona Terrace. One group wears white caps and white jackets, and stands in front of the red velvet curtains. These are the judges. From Argentina to Australia, 20 international cheese experts wind their way to Madison to spend three days inspecting, sniffing, tasting and spitting out everything from Gruyere to Gorgonzola (they spit out each cheese so as to not have hundreds of samples mulling around in their tummies – I’m not sure all the Pepto Bismol in the world could cure that kind of stomach ache).

    The second group wears blue hats and white coats, and mostly works behind the red velvet curtains. This is the “B Team”, as they are affectionately called, and these are the folks – all Wisconsin cheesemakers and industry volunteers – who unbox and unpack each and every piece of cheese for the judges to inspect, and then repack and rebox to put back on pallets to be zipped back to the cooler by another set of volunteers who have moving pallets down to a science.

    While both of these teams are busy working, a separate team in a separate room, mostly filled with computers, printers and cans of caffeine, tally the judges’ scores. This team – led by the amazing Jane Cisler at WCMA – is the invisible hub of the contest, always working, often running, to get scores entered as soon as possible and up and live on the contest website. Without Jane and her team of volunteers, the contest simply would not happen. They are truly the wizards behind the curtain.

    By Wednesday afternoon, judges have whittled down the 2,504 cheeses to just 82. These are the Gold Medal cheeses – the top cheeses in each of the classes. This year, the contest mixed things up a bit, and had the judges pare the top 82 down to a “Sweet 16”, which were then judged in front of a sold-out live audience at an evening gala in the Monona Terrace ballroom. More than 400 super foodies showed up to mingle with cheese industry folk and taste 50 cheeses from around the world, all the while watching the final round of gold-medal judging.

    At about 8:20 p.m., the crowd was rewarded for its patience with the naming of the Second Runner-Up (an Appenzeller from Switzerland), the First Runner-Up (a washed-rind Winzer Kase from Switzerland) and finally, the World Champion – the aforementioned lowfat Gouda.

    As hundreds cheered for the Dutch judge as he hefted his native country’s wheel of cheese above his shoulders (the actual cheesemaker won’t accept his medal until an April banquet in Milwaukee), the wizards both in front of and behind the curtains – the volunteers, the B Teamers, and the rest of the judging crew – all took a moment to stand and smile, satisfied with another year of finding the big cheese. Well done, crew. See you in 2014.

    cheeseunderground cheese, fundraising, Sarah Kowal, specialty shop, Wisconsin cheese

    WeatherVane Creamery

    Spunky people inspire me, and Sarah Kowal is just about the spunkiest person I’ve ever met.

    Sarah first called me a couple of months ago, announcing she was working hard to open a specialty cheese shop in River Falls, Wisconsin. Yes, that River Falls – a thriving metropolis of 15,000 people. Big sigh.

    Trying hard not to yawn, and instead thinking this was my requisite “call of the week” from a crazy person with a crazy idea who wanted me to magically help them achieve their dream, I politely listened. This caller did seem a little more enthusiastic than the usual suspects, and she did actually have a business plan and numbers to back up her dream.

    Then she called me again. And again. And again. And by the fourth phone call, I really started to like Sarah Kowal. Because really, how many people are passionate enough to start a specialty food shop and cafe in a town of 15,000 people, and where winter is the predominant season?

    That’s why I smiled when Sarah, who is unfortunately faced with low capital and low collateral, announced she is launching an ambitious Internet campaign to raise $100,000 in 32 days to launch her dream, called WeatherVane Creamery. As a Wisconsin-only specialty shop and café featuring farmstead, artisan and specialty cheeses, as well as organic, small batch churned scooped ice cream, gourmet sandwiches, WeatherVane Creamery “will celebrate all things Wisconsin.”

    You have to give her credit, the girl’s got spunk.

    Don’t believe me? View the video she produced for the crowd fundraising site, indiegogo.com and then tell me this girl’s not going to either succeed, or die trying.

    So what inspires a twenty-something gal to embark on this path? It’s a bit of a long and windy story, but I’ll try to sum it up for you:

    Sarah lived in River Falls 10 years ago as a student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls where she earned her Bachelors of Science in Horticulture. Yes, Horticulture. During that time, she worked at Whole Earth Grocery and began to appreciate the local business community on Main Street. In fact, she says River Falls is where she got her first taste of running a business (unless you count the paper route when she was 11 or selling donuts at her dad’s auctions at age 10).

    From there, she moved on to greener pastures (or so she thought) to take a job in Chicago for the largest horticultural company in the world. That didn’t pan out as well as she thought it would, so after a year or so, so she became a store manager for Starbucks on the commuter train line in Palatine, Illinois.

    Selling coffee on a train was where she found her calling. Starbucks rewarded her for being a leader in fiscal responsibility, employee development, customer service and community involvement. Eventually she made her way to Portland, Oregon, where she was hired to expand a natural foods co-op. She developed systems and teams for two stores and connected with farmers. Last March, she found herself in a position to create another new chapter in her life, and entrepreunership was calling.

    “After recalling with great fondness the wonderful things from River Falls, I packed up my trusty sidekick and set out on an epic journey across the country that began on Easter Day to come home and put down some deep roots,” Sarah says. “What started out as an idea to open a coffee shop has evolved and expanded to become a celebration of all things I missed during my 10 years away from my home state.”

    She says part of WeatherVane Creamery’s mission is to provide the community with a local business that is smart and quirky. She describes the shop as an “iconic Wisconsin destination store that successfully combines and appeals to traditional sensibilities with a hip and modern feel.”

    If successful, Kowal aims to open WeatherVane Creamery on April 1, just in time for National Grilled Cheese Day on April 12. Want to be part of her project? Contribute just $1 or more on indiegogo.com, and you can say you helped the spunky girl achieve her dream.

    cheeseunderground cheese, cheese course, New Years Eve, Wisconsin

    New Year’s Eve Party Cheese Trays: Then and Now

    THEN: My parents’ card club poses at the farmhouse for a photo on New Year’s Eve in front of my mother’s groovy macrame lamp and owl wall hanging in our orange-curtained, fake-wood-paneled, velvet flowered-covered-sofa living room. While I’m pretty sure this picture was taken circa 1986, the ’70s lived on until the house was torn down a few years ago.
    When I was a kid, serving a “cheese tray” at the annual New Year’s Eve card club party at our farmhouse in southwest Wisconsin usually meant one of two things:

    1. An hour before the party started, my mother unboxed the no-expiration-date-listed, mail-ordered Wisconsin Cheeseman holiday cheese ball, stuck a Santa-handled cheese spreader into it, and told me to put it on the table. Voila! Instant centerpiece.

    2. Dad reached past the Velveeta on the second shelf of the fridge for the “good cheese” – a Colby longhorn – and sliced it for me. Then I cut the big circles into shapes of stars, bells and angels, while Mom arranged them on a holiday platter. The best part? Getting to eat the “scraps” the cookie cutters left behind when I thought no one was looking.

    Thirty years and more than two dozen Wisconsin artisan cheesemakers later, those days seem far behind me. While I must admit I enjoy a good party cheese ball and slab of Colby as much as the next Wisconsinite card club Euchre player, the good news is that cheesemakers are crafting more original and artisanal cheeses all the time. That means WAY more options for bringing out the “good cheese”, and way more options for assembling a New Year’s Eve card club party cheese tray.

    Option 1: The Wisconsin Cheddar Flight
    This is perhaps one of the easiest cheese trays to assemble, as all you you need is four differently-aged Cheddars, a package of artisan crackers (such as Potter’s Crackers), and a fruit chutney of your choosing. When serving any cheese tray, I like to include a wedge of the cheese in its original form, along with strips or slices of cut cheese (never cubes), so guests can get an idea of how the cheese originally looked, and then taste it at the same time.

    If you’re not too busy making Brandy Old Fashioneds, then try and guide your guests into eating the cheeses in order of least aged to most aged. This lets your palate adjust and appreciate the differences in taste and complexity as the cheese ages. Here’s a sample Cheddar Flight course, arranged in order, from left to right:

    • Two-Year Cheddar from Widmer’s Cheese Cellars in Theresa
    • Six-Year Cheddar from Carr Valley Cheese in LaValle
    • 10-Year Cheddar from Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point
    • 12- or 15-Year Cheddar from Hook’s (depending on availability)

    Even though this is Wisconsin and our natural inclination is to eat every piece of cheese with at least one cracker, see if you can persuade your guests to first try each Cheddar separately, on its own, so they have the opportunity to appreciate the cheese and just the cheese. After the first taste, encourage guests to mix up the tasting with a bit of cracker or chutney, to see how each cheese differs with pairings. If serving wine, consider a Sauvignon Blanc or Cabernet Sauvignon. A wheat beer also pairs well with a flight of Cheddars. And of course, a Brandy Old Fashioned goes well with just about anything.

    Option 2: The Wisconsin Farmstead Cheese Tray
    Fifteen years ago, arranging this cheese tray would have been impossible, as only a handful of farmstead cheesemakers existed in Wisconsin. Today – lucky for us – more than 20 call America’s Dairyland home. The key to making a Farmstead Cheese Tray meaningful for your guests is knowing the story behind each cheese. You’ll want to know the cheesemaker’s name, the type of milk used, and the location of the creamery. All of this information can be found by asking the folks at your local cheese shop, or by doing a quick Google search. Again, make sure you leave a wedge of each cheese intact on your cheese tray, along with strips or slices for tasting, as farmstead cheeses are often the most eye-appealing cheeses on the market.

    A sample Wisconsin farmstead cheese tray might include:

    • Evalon, from LaClare Farms in Chilton (goat’s milk)
    • Marieke Young Gouda, from Holland’s Family Farm in Thorp (cow’s milk)
    • Ocooch Mountain, from Hidden Springs Creamery in Westby (sheep’s milk)
    • Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Extra Aged, from Uplands Cheese in Dodgeville (cow’s milk)

    These four cheeses present an excellent cross section of some of the best cheeses made in America, and lucky for us, they’re all crafted by farmstead cheesemakers in Wisconsin. Serve this cheese course with a sliced baguette, honey and fruit – perhaps a few red grapes or strawberries – and let guests mix and match cheese and companions as they wish. I’d recommend serving this course with a crisp white wine, such as a Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, or Riesling. A sparkling wine, such as a Moscato d’Asti, (my favorite) is also fun.

    Option 3: The Wisconsin Adventure Cheese Tray
    Sometimes the best cheese courses are the ones that represent different categories – such as a soft, semi-hard, hard, and blue. This type of course can be the most difficult to assemble, as multiple pairings may be necessary. To make it as easy as possible, consider this combination, which involves four cheeses, one type of cracker, a bit of honey and pear:

    • Driftless, from Hidden Springs Creamery in Westby (sheep’s milk)
    • Gran Canaria, from Carr Valley Cheese in LaValle (sheep, goat & cow’s milk)
    • Mona, from the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative and made at Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain (cow & sheep’s milk)
    • Buttermilk Blue, from Emmi Roth USA in Monroe (cow’s milk)

    Start with the Driftless, as this fresh, soft and fluffy sheep’s milk cheese is a natural starter for a cheese course. Pre-spread on a Hazelnut Graham Potter’s Cracker for guests, as they may be unfamiliar as to how to go about eating a fresh cheese. Then move on to the Gran Canaria. This olive oil-cured specialty is fruity, nutty, intense, sweet and pungent all at the same time. It should go well with a bit of pear. Next, try the Mona. This mixed milk cheese is made from cow and sheep milk and is mild and pleasant, and provides a nice balance between the soft and blue cheeses on this tray. End with Buttermilk Blue. Serve with a drizzle of honey, Hazelnut Graham Potter’s Cracker and slice of pear. This sweet blue is a nice ending to an adventurous cheese tray.

    No matter which cheeses you choose, a cheese tray is the perfect addition to a party, as it not only provides amazing tasting cheese, but is a great conversation piece. Mix and match your favorites, and encourage your guests to do the same. It’s hard to go wrong with cheese, especially on New Year’s Eve. Happy New Year!

    NOW: A 2012 Wisconsin artisan cheese tray, made possible by dozens of amazing cheesemakers who today call Wisconsin home. Five cheeses, a baguette, a few nuts, Potter’s Crackers and chutney. Throw in a card game and voila – instant party.
    cheeseunderground Brenda Jensen, cheese, Driftless, marijuana, pot, Wisconsin

    Marijuana Cheese? Um, No.

    Back in September, Cheese Underground partnered with cheesemaker Brenda Jensen at Hidden Springs Creamery in Westby, Wisconsin to develop a new flavor of her Driftless cheese.

    Deliciously simple, consisting of just sheep’s milk, culture, rennet and salt, Driftless is a light, creamy and spreadable fresh cheese that routinely sweeps (for the last four years running) the Fresh Sheep’s Milk Cheese class at the American Cheese Society competition. Available in an ever-evolving blend of flavors, including perennial favorites Basil & Olive Oil, Tomato & Garlic, and Honey & Lavender, as well as seasonal flavors such as Pumpkin, Maple, and Cranberry & Cinnamon, Brenda was looking to develop a new flavor and turned to you, my alert blog readers, for suggestions.

    Dozens of ideas from across the country poured in, ranging from morel to bacon to merlot and cocoa. But perhaps my favorite suggestion was from David, no last name or address given, who suggested Brenda make a Driftless with marijuana and call it “Cheese Exotica”.

    One gets the feeling that David lives in California, as he suggested that in the Golden State, one must only show a document to freely buy cannabis-infused edible products “which greatly help those who prefer GI ingestion. There are recipes for canna pesto, etc, and cheeses are so varied (blue vs. bland –I very much enjoy strong dessert cheeses that take over your brain) that folks can be creative.  I trust but have not done the research that Wisconsin has humane cannabinoid laws. And, yes, while the market is limited to those who consume the flavorant (perhaps 10% of the population), there are other cheeses favored for artisanal (snob) value.  Imagine the overlap of cheese snobs who distinguish canna cheeses. Just saying. Never seen this. Love cheese. Folks from Wisconsin seem reasonable. Carry on.”

    Sadly, David, the reasonable folks in Wisconsin have no such favorable medical marijuana laws, so Brenda had to choose her top eight favorites that did NOT include weed.

    Brenda even created prototypes of her top eight non-pot favorites, which were sampled during the Meet the Cheesemaker Gala during November’s Third Annual Wisconsin Original Cheese Festival, and let folks vote for their favorite.

    The winner? Allison Smith from Helotes, Texas, who suggested the completely legal flavor combination of Horseradish, Garlic & Onion. As the winner, Allison received a tub of the new Driftless flavor, made special by Brenda, as well as a complimentary one-year membership to Wisconsin Cheese Originals. Congratulations, Allison, and thanks to everyone who sent in their suggestions for legal and non-legal cheese flavors.

    cheeseunderground aged cheddar, blue, buck grove, cheddar, cheese, Hook's, Wisconsin, world championship

    Hook’s Cheese: Almost 40 Years & Still Going Strong

    Nearly 40 years ago, a pair of college sweethearts decided to make a living making cheese. Today, that same couple, Tony and Julie Hook, are still going strong, crafting more than 50 cheese varieties, including a stunning line-up of award-winning blues and aged Cheddars at their Hook’s Cheese factory in Mineral Point, Wis.

    Renown to locals and tourists alike as the super enthusiastic duo who samples and slings cheese under the “Hook’s Cheese” tent every Saturday at the Dane County Farmer’s Market, the Hooks have developed a first-class model for making award-winning cheese by buying fresh milk from the same group of small, local dairy farmers for the past three decades.

    “The farmers know what kind of milk we want, and we pay them a good price for it,” says Tony Hook. “It’s a system that’s worked for 35 years.”

    It’s also a system that provides the basis for consistent, high-quality cheese. The Hooks know this well, as they started that system back in 1977. That was the year they were hired as cheesemakers at Buck Grove, a factory dating back to 1887, which was rebuilt after a fire consumed the original building in 1925. At Buck Grove, they made mostly Cheddar and Monterey Jack, but it was a 1982 Colby that put the pair on the map.

    That year, Julie’s Colby entry won the “Best of Class” award in the World Cheese Championship, a medal coveted by cheesemakers around the globe. And, as if that weren’t enough, her cheese was then judged against the winners of all other classes, and was named the “Finest Cheese in the World.” It beat 482 entries from 14 states and 16 countries. Wisconsin Cheesemaker Julie Hook was, and still is, the only woman to win the World Championship Cheese Contest (see the list of world champions).

    The Hooks continued to make their world-winning Colby and other cheeses at Buck Grove until 1987, when the factory was closed after its patron farmers could not afford the $24,000 to modernize the factory’s pasteurizer to meet new state regulations.

    So the Hooks decided to purchase an idle factory in the village of Mineral Point. Their farmers followed, and continued shipping high-quality milk to the now Hook’s Cheese on Commerce Street. Their new factory – well, actually old, as the factory dates back to 1929 – allowed the Hooks to start aging cheese in the facility’s three aging caves, one of which is 16 feet underground.

    “When we bought the plant, one of the things we really liked was that it offered a lot of cold storage,” Tony says. “So we started aging Cheddar. We thought we’d go maybe three or five years, which back then, was a good, aged Cheddar. Now we age it up to 15 years, and have some set aside to go up to 20 years.”

    The latest batch of Hook’s 15-year Cheddar went on sale in early November at select specialty cheese shops — click here for the list — and retails for between $50 and $60 a pound. I’ve never tasted a Cheddar so aged, yet still a bit creamy amongst its crumbles and flavor crystals. Mmmmm … I say it’s worth every penny.

    In addition to the couple’s amazing aged Cheddars, the Hook’s are also well known for their blues, which they developed in the mid ’90s after customers at the Dane County Farmer’s Market began asking for a Wisconsin blue.

    Their first result was Hook’s Original Blue, launched in 1997, and still considered by many to be THE benchmark against which all blues are judged. In 2001, the Hooks’ followed with a Gorgonzola, which won a Silver Medal at the 2010 World Championship Cheese Contest. In 2004, they developed two new blue-veined cheeses: Tilston Point, a drier, washed-rind and some might say a “stinky” blue, and Blue Paradise, a double-cream and sweet, smoothy blue.

    One of my favorites, Bloomin’ Idiot, followed a few years later. I still remember the first time Tony showed me this bloomy-rind, blue-rind cheese at his plant, back in May, 2009, when he let me make cheese with him (read: mostly let me get in his way).

    Finally, the Hooks’ Little Boy Blue, a sheep’s milk cheese and a sister to Hidden Springs Creamery’s, Bohemian Blue, was launched a couple of years ago. Little Boy Blue won a Best of Class Award at the 2011 American Cheese Society competition. (I let out a “woot woot” for them at the awards ceremony in Montreal).

    Phew. That’s a lot of cheeses, and I didn’t even mention their Sweet Constantine, Stinky Fotene, Parmesan or Aged Swiss. Too many cheeses, too little space. Let’s just say that from world-renown Colby to record-setting Aged Cheddar to award-winning Blues, the Hooks have seen it all in their 40 years of cheese production.

    Tony sums it up this way: “In 1970, when I was apprenticing at the Barneveld Cheese plant right out of high school, we were still getting milk in cans – I think we were one of the last factories to do so. Then at Buck Grove, most farmers had switched to bulk tanks, so the milk got delivered in milk trucks. At our factory in Mineral Point, I picked up the milk until 1999, when I finally hired a trucker because I was too busy making cheese.”

    “Too busy making cheese” led the Hooks, in 2001, to make a switch they say is the key to their success today. Ten years ago, they were making cheese six or seven days a week, selling all but what went to the farmers market to a large distributor, where it ended up being sold under a variety of other company’s labels. Today, they make cheese two or three days a week and it all carries their label.

    “In 2001, we put everything under our own label and set our own prices,” Tony says. “We always made high quality cheese, at least I’d like to think so. We just decided to pay more attention to each batch and to grow into other varieties.”

    I’d say the Hooks’ have accomplished that and much more. At more than 50 different varieties and at least three different walls full of awards, the Hooks are still going strong. They even have a succession plan in place: younger brother Jerry Hook has joined the operation and now has his cheesemaker’s license. And then there’s the next generation. “The grandkids are coming up, so who knows?” he says with a smile. Yes, I definitely predict there will be more Hook’s cheese in the future.

    cheeseunderground cheese, jean d'alos

    On Location: Jean d’Alos

    Of all of the cheese shops we’ve visited in France (and we still have another couple to go today in Dijon), Jean d’Alos Fromager-Affineur in Bordeaux has been my favorite. Home to 150 cheeses from southwestern France, 95 percent of them raw-milk, this highly-respected shop has developed special relationships over the years with many small, local producers to age their cheeses and take them to market.

    On our visit this week, we were greeted by two lovely women: Patricia Dubourg and Delphine Loriot, who generously provided us with a 90-minute personal tour of the small upstairs shop and the three, 15th-Century aging caves below. Jean d’Alos has just remodeled its street-level shop into a modern, simple-chic retail space, with cutting-edge refrigeration methods that allow cheeses to seemingly float on open shelves, inviting customers to touch, smell, (and in my case, lovingly cradle) before buying.

    After viewing Jean d’Alos’ three different aging caves – one for goat cheeses, one for bloomy rinds, and the largest for cooked and uncooked pressed cheeses, Patricia and Delphine led us through a five-cheese tasting tour, first showing us the whole wheel aging in their caves, and then cutting up a wedge so we could taste with different wines.



    Buche de Pussigny: We were delighted to taste this cheese, as it is made by the La Ferme du Bois-Rond farmstead goat dairy in Pussigny, France, where husband-wife team of Dominique and Marie-Therese Guillet provided us with an amazing tour of their farm and creamery earlier in the week. Jean d’Alos works exclusively with this farm to age this particular cheese to market, which is very much the same as the farm’s AOC Sainte Maure de Touraine cheese without the AOC label.

    St. Nectaire Fernier: Earning the first farmhouse AOC designation in France in 1955, this cheese is rightly considered one of France’s national treasures. Made from the milk of Salers cows that feed on volcanic pasture lands of France, the cheese is aged by Jean d’Alos on straw mats, covered with breathable sheets of paper. While the rind gives off a pungent odor of straw and mushroom, the paste is soft, creamy and dreamy, with a lush nutty flavor. This could very well be my new favorite French cheese.

    Tomme d’Aquitaine: Patricia told us this cheese, a recent creation, resulted from the marriage of two traditions: the production of pressed cheese made by migrating shepherds in the Graves region in spring before traveling back to the Pyrenees, and the production of the regional white wine. The rind is washed for at least four months in Sauternes wine to achieve the unique fruity flavor.

    Ossau de Printemps: A classic sheep’s milk cheese made in the French Pyrénées in the Ossau Valley province, this hard, naturally-rinded boasts a beautiful natural ivory paste with hints of hazelnut. One of my favorite sheep’s milk cheeses tasted thus far in France.

    Comte: Jean d’Alos hand selects wheels of Comte, ages the wheels in their caves, and sells between two and three wheels a week. Keep in mind that each wheel weighs about 110 pounds, and you’ll understand how much cheese this shop moves. We tried a wheel of this famous AOC beauty from 2009, and after the cave tour and tasting, went upstairs and promptly bought our fair share for a lunch picnic.

    Near the end of the tour, I caught Patricia’s eye and thanked her profusely for all the time she had given our 20-member group from Wisconsin. I asked her how long she had been with the shop and she provided a surprising answer: 17 years. As she didn’t look old enough to already have that long of a career, I jokingly asked if she had started when she was 10. She gave one of the most beautiful answers one could imagine: “It’s from working so many years in the caves. They have preserved me.”

    Who knew spending your career aging cheeses is the secret to youth?

    Thanks to all of my amazing Wisconsin Cheese Originals members for joining me on this tour. I am having so much fun discovering France with all of you. Just two more days until we board the plane back to Wisconsin. I wonder how much cheese we can take with us?

    cheeseunderground blue, cheddar, cheese, Roelli, Wisconsin, Wisconsin cheese

    New Roelli Cheese: Red Rock

    Named for the local stone that surrounds the room in which it is aged, Red Rock is the newest creation from up-and-coming rock star cheesemaker Chris Roelli in Shullsburg, Wisconsin.

    While technically a Cheddar-Blue, Red Rock differs significantly from Roelli’s flagship cheese, Dunbarton Blue. Where the Dunbarton was designed to be an elegant table cheese, imparting the feel of an English cheddar, yet spiked with the delicate, subtle flavor of a fine blue, Red Rock is more of a working man’s cheese. Where the Dunbarton is earthy and crumbly, Red Rock is creamy and sliceable. It’s the type of cheese that will take a sandwich to the next level, yet you won’t be able to stop peeking at it between the slices of bread because it’s so strikingly beautiful.

    “I view it as Dunbarton’s little cousin,” Chris Roelli says. “A few years ago at the American Cheese Society, I saw a super dark orange cloth-bound Cheddar and thought it was really striking. So that’s the look I was going for.”

    Colored with twice the amount of annatto as a traditional Wisconsin Cheddar and aged between 3-6 months, Red Rock is more of a creamy Cheddar than a crumbly Blue. Roelli uses five different starter cultures to frame the flavor profile of the cheese, placing curds into 40-pound block forms to set. Once the cheese is pressed, he cuts the big blocks into smaller 5-pound loaves, hand spiking each individual loaf to let the blue mold breathe. Red Rock is then placed on racks for cellar-aging and allowed to develop a natural blue rind, while inside, deep spikes of blue mold grow through the center.

    While Red Rock won’t be sold at cheese shops until mid-October (it’s still aging to perfection), early batches are currently for sale at the Roelli Cheese store between Shullsburg and Darlington. It’s too new to be included yet on the company’s online store, but will be available by Christmas.