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Landmark Creamery: Cheese With Heart

Headshot1 03.2012

Five years ago, Anna Landmark sent me a letter, applying for a $2,500 Beginning Cheesemaker Scholarship through my organization, Wisconsin Cheese Originals. Dated January 29, 2012, she thanked me for considering her application, which listed her current position as a policy research director for a non-profit advocacy organization, along with past jobs in communications consulting, political campaign management and community organization.

I thought to myself: why on earth does this woman want to be a cheesemaker?

And then I turned the page. It read:

“My first recollection of eating cheese is at my grandparent’s dairy farm in Mount Horeb. They always had a large block of Swiss cheese sitting under a glass dome on the kitchen table. It would be brought out for breakfast in the morning and generally left on the table until the end of the day when it was wrapped up and put into the refrigerator. My grandfather was a stout Swiss farmer, his grandfather one of the original settlers of New Glarus, and milk, cheese and butter were staples. Swiss cheese with breakfast, with dinner, and with supper. Sometimes aged and sharp as can be, sometimes Baby with a mild bit and perfect elasticity. I loved it all.”

Heart. The girl had heart. Her application would go on to say she had started taking cheesemaking courses at UW-Madison, that she and her husband had bought a small farm near Albany, and that her grandfather was enjoying watching her return to the cheese world. But the sentence that sealed the deal was: “My grandfather is still skeptical anyone on a small scale can really make a living doing it. But I want to find out: can I build a successful business making sheep milk cheeses?”

Needless to say, Anna Landmark won that year’s scholarship, went on to earn her cheesemaker’s license, and today owns and operates Landmark Creamery with business partner Anna Thomas Bates. She crafts seasonal sheep, cow and mixed milk cheeses, renting space at Cedar Grove in Plain and Thuli Family Creamery in Darlington. At both the 2017 and 2015 U.S. Championship Cheese Contests, her fresh sheep’s milk cheese, Petit Nuage, won a Gold Medal, and she continually wins awards for her cheeses each year at the American Cheese Society competition.

Today, readers of Cheese Underground, you have a chance to help the dynamic Anna duo complete their dreams. That’s because Landmark Creamery is nearing the end of a Kickstarter campaign, where it is seeking $25,000 in seed money to build a cheese aging space and to purchase more efficient equipment, allowing the Annas to create new cheeses and buy more milk from Wisconsin family farms. With just five days to go, they are only $4,000 short of their goal.

And, while the past five years have witnessed the birth and early success of Landmark Creamery, with your help, dear readers, it can go even further. Here is Anna’s statement from 2012, describing her business 10 years in the future:

“In 2022, I hope to have nine years of making and selling sheep milk cheeses under my belt, and to be anticipating enrolling in the UW’s Master Cheese Making program. My goal is to have my own cheese plant, growing to produce 100,000 pounds of cheese per year, with distribution regionally and to the elite markets on the coasts. I feel so inspired when making cheese. I hope my business will be a credit to the dairy industry in Wisconsin, and that my cheeses will be delicious and unique enough to become Wisconsin Originals.”

Mission accomplished, my dear. Now let’s help you write the next chapter. Your grandpa would be proud.

Donate here.

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Modern Day Thelma & Louise: Landmark Creamery Lands in Green County Cheese Days Tent

Anna Thomas Bates (in blue) and Anna Landmark take a selfie with their
first winning ribbon at the 2016 American Cheese Society Competition. The
duo went on to win three awards for their cheeses at the prestigious event.
Photo by Uriah Carpenter

Watch out, world. For just the second time in the 100-year history of Green County Cheese Days, a woman cheesemaker will sample and sell her cheese inside the event’s iconic cheese tent on the downtown Monroe historic city square.

With more than a dozen cheese factories in Green County, the massive cheese tent at Cheese Days has been dominated by male cheesemakers for years. Only Julie Hook, co-owner of Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point in Iowa County, has been able to break the glass vat in the past 20 years and sell cheese inside the Green County tent. And no wonder: America’s Dairyland is full of third and fourth generation cheesemakers, as fathers traditionally pass down their craft to sons.

But starting Friday, Wisconsin cheesemaker Anna Landmark and business partner Anna Thomas Bates will set up a table to sample and sell a half dozen of their different artisan cow, sheep and goat cheeses they make at area cheese factories during off-hours. The pair do not have their own plant, and instead rent space at Thuli Family Creamery in Darlington to make their cheese.

Perhaps the first selfie EVER. Taken by Thelma & Louise, one of my all-time favorite movies.
(It doesn’t hurt that a college boyfriend once told me I looked like Geena Davis. Sigh. If only).

“All the cheesemakers have been so welcoming to us, and we’re very honored to be invited to participate in the cheese tent,” Anna Landmark says. “We’re planning on introducing lots of folks to artisan sheep and goat cheeses.”

The Annas, as they are affectionately known in the industry, have been making cheese since 2013. They purchase sheep milk from a partner dairy in Rewey, cow milk from a grazier near Belleville, and goat milk from a neighboring farm. They are perhaps best known for their award-winning Petit Nuage, a fresh sheep’s milk button cheese, and Anabasque, a natural rinded, hard sheep’s milk cheese that rivals the Franco-Basque cheese on which it is based.

Some of the cheeses Landmark Creamery will be sampling and selling this weekend at Green County Cheese Days include:

The Annas at a Milwaukee dinner last year celebrating
a successful year of making artisan cheese.

  • Samwell, an earthy, cave-aged sheep cheddar, as well as a non cave-aged version
  • Anabasque, inspired by Ossau Iraty from the Basque region of France
  • Pecora Nocciola (a cave-aged version), perfect for grating or shredding on pasta
  • Pipit, a smooth and creamy sheep cheese, made for melting or slicing for sandwiches
  • Petit Nuage, a fresh, French-style soft sheep milk cheese, made weekly
  • A new raw milk Spanish goat cheese, cave aged, and yet to be named (they’re looking for ideas)
  • Chèvre: the original fresh goat cheese, with versions flavored with savory spice, thyme, black pepper, lemon peel, sumac and chili flake
  • A goat version of their ACS award winner Summer Babe, flavored with orange peel, lavender and honey.

Cheese Tent hours at Green County Cheese Days start on Friday, Sept. 16 from 9 am to 8 pm,  continue Saturday from 9 am to 8 pm and conclude on Sunday from 9 am to 6 pm. You’ll find Uriah and me helping out the Annas at their table Saturday morning. (Please stop by and say hi!)

Cheese Days itself runs from Friday through Sunday this weekend and includes a myriad of events all three days, including a main stage and several side stages featuring yodeling, alphorns, polka bands and Swiss heritage music. There’s also a cow milking contest, numerous food stands, and deep-fried cheese curds that are completely worth waiting in line for an hour or more.

On Saturday from noon to 4 pm, don’t miss the cheesemaking demonstration right on the square, where veteran cheesemakers craft a 200-pound wheel of Swiss the old fashioned way in a giant copper kettle. Green County cheesemakers take turns at the microphone, and the public is invited to help stir the curd with an old fashioned “Swiss harp.” After the cheese is hooped, Wisconsin Master Cheesemakers Gary Grossen and Jeff Wideman plug a block of cheese and demonstrate the grading and judging process using the criteria of the U.S. and World Championship Cheese Competitions.

Then on Sunday, come for the grand poobah of all parades, starting at 12:30 pm, and led by a procession of Brown Swiss cows and their Green County dairy farm family owners in full Swiss traditional clothing. The two-hour parade features 11 different divisions of bands, floats, dairy queens, horse-pulled wagons, trucks full of past and present cheesemakers, as well as the Limburger Queen, Stephanie Klett (whose day job is the Wisconsin Secretary of Tourism). Everyone should experience the Green County Cheese Days parade at least once in their lifetimes.

More importantly, come for a weekend of good cheese made by award-winning cheesemakers, and be sure to take a wedge or two home with you!

Uriah and I helped cut and wrapped 546 pieces of Landmark Creamery’s Samwell, a cave-aged sheep milk cheddar,  for Green County Cheese Days. Make sure you buy a wedge at the cheese tent in Monroe this weekend!
Photo by Jeanne Carpenter

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Wisconsin Cheeses that Wow Right Now

Original artwork by Debra Ziss for the 2016 Roth Cheese Calendar hanging
in my kitchen.

Wisconsin cheese mania reached an all-time high this week, as Emmi Roth’s Grand Cru Surchoix captured the top spot at the World Championship Cheese Contest Wednesday night in front of a sold out, wall-to-wall packed home crowd at the Monona Terrace in Madison.

The winning cheese is a washed rind, extra aged Gruyere-style, with bold nutty notes. It’s made in Monroe, the county seat of Green County, commonly known as the defacto cheese capital of America’s Dairyland. With 13 cheese factories, 200 cheesemakers, 31,000 cows and 37,000 people, the area is a dairy paradise of cows, green grass, milk and cheese. So it is only fitting the region now produces the best cheese in the world: Grand Cru Surchoix.

Most every retailer in Madison is now sold out of Surchoix, but fear not, more is promised to arrive next week. Until then, let’s take a look at a few cheeses that are REALLY good right now. The quality of local artisan and farmstead cheeses ebbs and flows with the seasons, but here are a handful that are wowing me today:

1. Tallgrass Reserve, Landmark Creamery, Albany. Cheesemaker Anna Landmark has hit her stride with this cow’s milk original recipe. With its natural white moldy rind, the cheese sports a bandaged cheddar texture, yet creamy with a heckuva tang and cavey finish. The current wheels coming from Landmark Creamery are the best wheels I’ve ever tasted. Buy this cheese right now.

2. Cesar’s Queso Oaxaca, Cesar’s Cheese, Random Lake. Cesar, his wife Heydi, and son, Cesar, Jr. swept the top three slots in the string cheese category at this week’s World Championship Cheese Contest. That means the top three string cheesemakers in the world come from ONE family in Wisconsin. This cheese has always been on my go-to list, but the winning batch – available now in stores – is extra stringy and extra salty, kind of like a big fat and delicious potato chip washed down with a glass of whole milk. Hang on, I’ve got to go eat another stick before I continue …

3. Roelli Haus Select, Roelli Cheese, Shullsburg. A newcomer to the retail arena, this bandaged cheddar captured first in its category at this week’s World Championship Cheese Contest, which means Master Cheesemaker Chris Roelli can add another award to his shelf: Global Gold Medalist Cheddar Maker. Roelli tastes each batch and releases it based on flavor, not age. That means some wheels might be eight months, and some wheels might be over a year old, but all hit an earthy, crumbly, cheddary note of a good bandaged cheddar. Right now, released batches of this cheese stack up (and I daresay win) against the great bandaged cheddars of the world. Because, yeah, it’s that good.

4. Hook’s Triple Play, Hook’s Cheese, Mineral Point. Made in 40-pound blocks, this tri-milk cheese boasts sheep, goat and cow flavor notes at different points on the tongue. Some batches I’ve tasted have been too young and not very complex, but the blocks out right now are perfect. Firm and tangy, the Hooks say the cheese is a flavor combination of a baby swiss, gouda and havarti. I say it’s a trifecta of amazingness. This is one American Original you don’t want to miss.

5. Farmstead Feta, Hidden Springs Creamery, Westby. In Greece, all feta is made with either sheep or goat’s milk, or a combination of the two. It is only in America, with our plethora of black and white dairy cows, that cow’s milk feta is commonplace. That’s why I cue my happy dance when I find Brenda Jensen’s sheep milk feta on store shelves. Extra aged with a pleasant bite, never bitter and perfect salt ratio, this is the feta our Greek friends are worried about in trade talks. Buy it now.

6. Carr Valley Cave Aged Marisa, Carr Valley Cheese, LaValle. With more than 60 different cheeses to choose from, Carr Valley can meet just about anyone’s cheese category needs. Spend your calories on this cheese – an extra aged sheep’s milk cheese with beautiful natural rind, aged on wooden boards in a cave environment. Think sweet, earthy and buttery all in one bite: Cave-Aged Marisa.

7. Donatello, Cedar Grove Cheese, Plain. This small-batch cheese just won second in its class at the World Contest, and for good reason. While most people will grab a Manchego for their token sheep milk cheese on an appetizer cheese board, at about nine months old, Donatello blows the average Manchego exported to the U.S. out of the water. Rich, complex and just starting to form tyrosine crystals, Donatello right now is very, very good. If you can find it, buy it.

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The 10 Best Wisconsin Cheeses of 2015

It was a good year to live in Wisconsin. Our cheesemakers debuted new cheeses, won boatloads of awards, and did happy dances on stage. And because it’s almost time to say goodbye to 2015, I think we should pay tribute to the great cheeses that continue to put Wisconsin on the map. Here are my 10 favorites.

1. Cupola, Red Barn Family Farms

Exceptional cheese starts with exceptional milk. No one knows this better than the five dairy farmers who make up Red Barn Family Farms, founded by veterinarian Dr. Terry Homan and his spunky wife, Paula, back in the mid 2000s. Every dairy farmer adheres to the Red Barn Rules, resulting in exceptionally happy cows that give give exceptionally good milk. Cupola is the company’s signature cheese (their Heritage Weis 3-Year Cheddar is also one of my all-time favorites). Cupola is a white, hard, alpine style cheese crafted by U.S. Champion Cheesemaker Katie Hedrich Furhmann for Red Barn Family Farms. This is a limited-availability cheese so if you see it at your favorite specialty cheese counter, buy it immediately.

2.  Marieke Bacon Gouda, Holland’s Family Cheese

U.S. Champion Cheesemaker Marieke Penterman is known for making a variety of flavored goudas – mustard melange, cumin, foenegreek, insert another 10 flavors here, but she outdid herself this year with her new Bacon Gouda. Made on the Penterman family farm in Thorp, Wisconsin, this farmstead bacon gouda is chock full – and I mean freakin’ chock full – of bacon. As most of you know, I come from a long family line of folks who don’t eat a lot of cheese, and when I presented this cheese to my father on Christmas Eve (keep in mind he was recovering from the stomach flu), he took one bite and then kept eating. The whole thing. Because yeah, it’s that good.

3. Petit Nuage, Landmark Creamery

Newcomer Cheesemaker Anna Landmark and her business partner Anna Thomas Bates put Wisconsin on the map with this French-style button sheep’s milk cheese last year, and followed up this year with a shiny gold medal at the 2015 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest for their Petit Nuage. Available seasonally from February through October, each cheese is just one ounce in weight and less than two inches in diameter – a perfect single portion. I’ve seen the cheese paired with honey, ginger, a variety of preserves, and even black pepper, but seriously, it’s amazing alone and makes a lovely addition to a cheese board.

4.  Queso Oaxaca, Cesar’s Cheese

America’s best string cheese. Period. I could just stop here, but I have to gush a bit more because I find it amazing that cheesemaking duo Cesar and Heydi Luis still hand-stretch every single batch of this delightfully stringy, salty, addictive cheese. I compare this bright white cow’s milk cheese to a bag of potato chips. You can’t eat just one, and before you realize what’s happened, the entire package is gone. Popular with kids and adults alike, this is the one cheese that teenagers always, always expect me to have in my fridge, and when I don’t, inform me I have failed their cheese needs.

5. Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Uplands Cheese

Just when you think there’s nothing more that can be said about America’s most awarded artisan cheese, Cheesemaker Andy Hatch hits it out of the park with another stellar season of alpine-style greatness. Pleasant Ridge Reserve has been so good for so long, many of us take it for granted. But the current wheels for sale – aged about 15 months – are some of the best cheese I’ve ever tasted. If you haven’t had Pleasant Ridge in a while because you think it’s old news, it deserves another look. Simply put, this cheese never goes out of style.

6. Three-Year Cheddar, Hook’s Cheese

In a year when Tony and Julie Hook made national headlines with their 20-Year Cheddar (and then donated half of the proceeds – $40,000 to the Center for Dairy Research in Madison), their 3-Year Cheddar is still my favorite. When folks ask what cheese best describes Wisconsin, this is the cheese I put in their cart. Solid, sharp cheddar with a construction-orange hue that put Wisconsin cheddar on the map years ago. A true Wisconsin classic.

7. Dunbarton Blue, Roelli Cheese

Dunbarton is one of the few Wisconsin cheeses that can serve dual purposes on a cheese board: both Cheddar and Blue. That’s because this cellar-aged, natural-rinded cheddar sports a few deep veins of blue. It literally tastes like a cloth-bound cheddar until you hit a blue vein, and then the heavenly combination of rustic cheddar and blue mold meet for a new flavor all its own. Remember the commercials from the ’80s for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – where chocolate and peanut butter accidentally meet to make the perfect candy bar? The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board should reenact that commercial for this cheese, because newly minted Master Cheesemaker Chris Roelli continues to strike gold with cheddar + blue = Dunbarton Blue.

8. Extra Aged Goat, Sartori

Master Cheesemaker Pam Hodgson releases this limited-edition cheese twice a year, usually in summer and then in time for the year-end holidays. Hand-crafted in small batches, the 22-pound wheels are aged a minimum of 10-months. If you like Sartori’s BellaVitano Gold, you’ll like this cheese, as it reminds me of the Gold, but without the Gold’s sweet fruity finish, and instead a deeper, tangier bite. Bright white, crumbly yet still sliceable, Sartori’s Extra Aged Goat is a perennial award winner on the world stage and is the perfect goat’s milk cheese to serve your friends who are under the impression they don’t like goat’s milk.

9. Roth’s Private Reserve, Roth Cheese

I swear to God this cheese keeps getting better every year. Made in traditional copper vats and aged in the Roth Cellars in Monroe, Private Reserve is released on flavor, not age. It’s always aged a minimum of six months, but the wheels this year have to be closer to one year. This is literally the best Gruyere cheese you will ever eat that does not have Gruyere in its name.

10. Jeffs’ Select, Maple Leaf Cheese & Caves of Faribault

There’s no easier way to class up a cheese board than with this aged cow’s milk gouda made by Master Cheesemaker Jeff Wideman at Maple Leaf Cheese in Monroe, and then aged by Cheesemaker Jeff Jirik at the Caves of Faribault in Minnesota. With its annatto-rubbed pumpkin-colored rind, this striking cheese sports a dark golden hue with deep caramel notes and tyrosene crystals the size of walnuts. Okay, well perhaps I’m exaggerating about that last part, but this cheese is so good that I can’t exaggerate its taste enough. Buy. It. Now.

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New Wisconsin Cheeses Debut at 2015 ACS

Cheese Camp for cheeseheads is in full swing this week at the annual American Cheese Society conference in Providence, Rhode Island, where more than 1,000 cheese folk have gathered to celebrate a theme of Craft, Creativity and Community.

And, like usual, it takes me traveling halfway across the country to discover a half dozen new Wisconsin cheeses I never knew existed, many of which made their official debut to the world at tonight’s Meet the Cheesemaker event.

1. First up: a yet-to-be-named cheese from Landmark Creamery made in a Reblochon style – an oooey, gooey, stinky French cheese we Americans can’t get in the United States because it’s made from raw milk and aged less than 60 days. At six weeks old, the newbie pasteurized cow’s milk cheese from cheesemaker Anna Landmark and her sales partner, Anna Thomas Bates, is washed in mead from Bos Meadery in Madison, Wis.

“We washed batches in brine, mead and nut brown beer, and liked the mead wash the best. It adds a touch of sweetness that was missing in the others, particularly near the rind,” Landmark says. She’s right – her new cheese is stinky, sticky and meaty in true washed-rind form, with just enough tangy bite near the finish to make it particular interesting without being overly funky. Look for this new cheese on the retail market in a few months.

2. Buried in the midst of a mountain of Grand Cru at the Roth Cheese table tonight was a construction-orange wheel of aged cheese with no name tag and zero marketing materials. Turns out the cheese is based on an aged Mimolette and will be named Prairie Sunset. Aged six months, the cheese is riddled with eyes and boasts a crumbly texture with a creamy mouthfeel. No word yet on what date the cheese will be released to retail – stay tuned!

3. From our friends in Brooten, Minnesota (who I’ve officially adopted as close-enough-to-Wisconsinites), Alise and Lucas Sjostrom of Redhead Creamery debuted their new Little Lucy  tonight. Made in a small, tall 4-ounce top hat, and aged six weeks, this adorable little brie is – say it with me – amazing. It’s the perfect size to consume in one sitting with a baguette and glass of champagne.

“There are three types of people in Minnesota,” Lucas explains, in what would have been a Fargo-movie-worthy “up nort” drawl if it hadn’t been cultured up a bit from the couple’s spending a few years living in Vermont and Wisconsin. “You’ve got cheese curd people. You’ve got aged cheddar people. And you’ve got brie people. So those are the three cheeses we make.”

Little Lucy is, of course, named for the Sjostrom’s daughter, aged 2-1/2. Early indications lean toward her being a redhead like her mama. The little brie joins Lucky Linda in the Redhead Creamery line-up. Named for Alise’s mom, Lucky Linda is an aged cheddar crafted in two ways: first, as a clothbound cheddar, and, second with a natural rind. Alise says so far, the clothbound is more popular, so she will likely be making more wheels in that style as time goes on. All cheeses are produced and aged on the family farm in Brooten.

4.  Because there are only a handful of cheese plants in Minnesota, and because all seven of them are just so darn nice, I’m including a second “close enough to Wisconsin” company in this line-up: The Lone Grazer Creamery, a brand new urban cheese factory in northeast Minneapolis. Cheesemaker Rueben Nilsson, former cheesemaker at Caves of Faribault; and Sales Director Seamus Folliard, a former English teacher who discovered his calling in sales, first at 2 Gingers Whiskey, and now in cheese, debuted two cheeses tonight: Hansom Cab and Grazier’s Edge.

Hansom Cab is 4-inch disc of stinky goodness, washed in the aforementioned Irish 2 Gingers Whiskey and smoky Lapsang Souchong tea. The result is a milky, meaty cheese with grassy notes of asparagus. Grazier’s Edge, meanwhile, is an 11-inch, taller wheel, washed with St. Paul’s own 11 Wells Rye Whiskey. It is milder, more buttery, with an open texture and melt-in-your-mouth consistency.

Milk for both cheeses comes from two nearby dairies, both of which pasture their cows: Sunrise Meadow in Cokato, Minn., which milks 25 Brown Swiss and Milking Shorthorns, and Stengard Dairy, near Wadena, Minn., which milks Swedish Reds and Milking Shorthorns. The result is a unique milk profile with distinct grassy notes that Nilsson expertly turns into two fabulous cheeses.

5. Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, the folks at LaClare Farms tonight debuted their new goat’s milk yogurt in plain, vanilla, strawberry and blueberry. The yogurt has just started production, with no date set yet for a retail launch, other than “soon,” says farm matriarch Clara Hedrich. Prototype cups sport attractive arty labels, and the yogurt will be available in 6-ounce and 24-ounce sizes. The yogurt has a richer consistency than many goat yogurts, with a crisp, clean flavor.

6. Klondike Cheese in Monroe is seeing success with their new Adelphos Greek Yogurt Dips, which I tried for the first time tonight. The savory dips are made with the company’s Odyssey Greek Yogurt and are available in four flavors: Cucumber Garlic, Southwest, Red & Green Bell Pepper and French Onion. My favorite was the French Onion, which cheesemaker and yogurt maker Adam Buholzer helpfully explained has 25 percent less sodium, 50 percent less fat, 50 percent less cholesterol and three times the protein as a conventional French Onion dip. That’s good – this way I won’t feel so guilty when I consume the entire 12-oz. container in one sitting.

Last but not least, a hearty shout-out to two new products from Wisconsin cheesemakers: Marieke Gouda Truffle, which debuted in April, and Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese Curds, because in Wisconsin, we never have enough squeaky curd. Thanks to all of these fine folks for doing cheeseheads proud.

All photos by Uriah Carpenter. 

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Want To Be A Wisconsin Cheesemaker?

Good news aspiring cheesemakers! Wisconsin Cheese Originals announced today applications for its 2014 Beginning Cheesemaker Scholarship are available. The $2,500 award will help one aspiring cheesemaker earn his or her Wisconsin cheesemaking license and make new artisan, farmstead or specialty cheeses.

As you know, Wisconsin is the only state in the nation to require cheesemakers to be licensed, a lengthy process that can take as long as 18 months, requires the attendance at five cheesemaking courses, and 240 hours of apprenticeship with an existing licensed Wisconsin cheesemaker.

Applications for the 2014 Wisconsin Cheese Originals Beginning Cheesemaker Scholarship are available for download at www.WisconsinCheeseOriginals.com. Applications are due March 20. The recipient will be chosen by a review committee and notified by April 7.

Wisconsin Cheese Originals has awarded $10,000 in scholarship monies to beginning cheesemakers since 2010. Past program scholarship recipients include:

2013: Jennifer Digman owns and runs Krayola Sky Dairy, a goat dairy in Cuba City. She successfully obtained her cheesemaker’s license in 2013 after earning the Wisconsin Cheese Originals scholarship. She works at both Uplands Cheese and Roelli Cheese as a professional affineur (cheese aging specialist). Digman has dreams of building her own on-farm creamery to craft fresh, hand-dipped chevre, aged mixed milk artisan cheeses, and hand-washed Alpine-styles. She hopes to pass the operation down to her two young daughters.

2012: Anna Landmark owns and runs a small-scale sustainable farm with her husband and children in Albany, Wis. In 2013, Anna successfully launched Landmark Creamery and began making seasonal sheep, cow and water buffalo cheeses, using the facilities at Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain, Wis. At the 2013 Wisconsin Cheese Originals Festival, her Bawdy Buffalo, a water buffalo Taleggio-style cheese, was named one of the best up-and-coming American Original cheeses in the nation.

2011: Rose Boero, a dairy goat breeder in Custer, Wis, successfully obtained her cheesemaker’s license after receiving the scholarship in 2011. Today, she makes a variety of goat’s milk cheeses at Willow Creek Cheese and teaches beginning cheesemaking classes in her home for amateur cheesemakers. She is developing plans to build her own cheese plant at her dairy goat farm, where she and her husband have raised Toggenburg dairy goats for 25 years.

2010: Katie Hedrich Furhmann, a goat’s milk cheesemaker, obtained her license after receiving the first Wisconsin Cheese Originals Scholarship. At the 2011 U.S. Champion Cheese Contest, she took Best in Show for her goat’s milk cheese, LaClare Farms Evalon, and was named the 2011 U.S. Champion Cheesemaker, the youngest cheesemaker to ever earn the title. In 2013, she and her family built a new farmstead cheese plant on their farm near Pipe, Wis. She launches new cheeses annually.

For those of you not in the know, Wisconsin Cheese Originals is an organization I started in 2009. Our motto is: Have Fun. Do Good. Eat Cheese. We are a membership organization sharing information about Wisconsin artisan cheeses through a variety of events, all in the spirit of celebrating Wisconsin cheesemakers. You can join for just $35 a year and be invited to tours, dinners, classes and super cool tasting events. More info on becoming a cheese geek here: Wisconsin Cheese Originals.

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Top 10 Wisconsin Artisan Cheeses of 2013

So if you’re like the rest of us cheese geeks, you’re either likely throwing a cheese-themed New Year’s Eve party, or you’ve been invited to a year-end shindig and asked to bring the requisite cheese plate. Looking for a little inspiration? Here are my top 10 cheeses of 2013.

10. Grand Cru Surchoix by the cheesemakers at Emmi Roth USA in Monroe. Aged at least nine months, this American Gruyere often beats its Swiss counterparts at international contests, and there’s good reason: this is an amazingly good cheese. Put it in the center of your board. It deserves the spotlight.

9. Cave Aged Marisa by cheesemaker Sid Cook at Carr Valley Cheese in LaValle. What do you get when you combine the cheesemaking prowess of master Sid Cook and the affinage ability of Jennifer Brozak at Bear Valley Affinage? A beauty like no other: this award-winning cheese has only gotten better in the past year, sporting a beautiful natural cave rind and delightfully crystal, crumbly paste. If you haven’t had this cheese in a while, it’s time to try it again.

8. Extra Aged Asiago by cheesemaker Mike Matucheski at Sartori in Antigo. I’ve got to admit, I usually overlook Asiago in favor of Parmesan. But this extra-aged delight stands on its own against any extra-aged parm. Crumbly, crystally and wonderfully nutty, Sartori’s Asiago rivals the Italian original.

7. Ewe Calf to be Kidding by cheesemaker Tony Hook, Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point. What’s believed to be the first blue in the nation using a mixture of cow, goat and sheep’s milk cheese, this creamy, tangy blue beauty is a future best in show winner. It’s got a cute label too: who can resist animals with googly eyes?

6. Marieke Black Mustard Gouda by cheesemaker Marieke Penterman, Holland’s Family Cheese in Thorp. This month, the current U.S. Champion Cheesemaker and her family are moving into their new farmstead creamery operation two miles down the road from the original homestead. While this particular gouda is by no means new, it’s an underrated flavor perfect to liven up a cheese board. It’s a cheese with both beauty and brains = win win.

5. Water Buffalo Taleggio by cheesemaker Anna Landmark, Landmark Creamery in Albany. What started out as an experimental cheese ended up being one of the best American Original cheeses released this year by an up-and-comer. Anna crafts her cheeses at Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain, using seasonal milks. Watch for her water buffalo Taleggio to appear on the market again in spring.

4. Martone by cheesemaker Katie Hedrich, LaClare Farm in Pipe, Wis. Not yet even 30 years old, Hedrich has created another game-changing Wisconsin artisan cheese with her mixed milk Martone, a surface-ripened buttery bloomy made in small discs. This was a big year for Katie: she got married and worked with her family to open their own farmstead creamery. One gets the feeling this cheesemaker will be making this list every year with a different, new cheese.

3. LaVon Goat Brie by cheesemaker Todd Jaskolski, Caprine Supreme in Black Creek. After reeling from from a shoulder injury that limited his ability to make hard cheeses, Jaskolski reinvented himself and created two farmhouse French-style bries, one with goat’s milk and the other with cow’s milk. We like the goat version better – the citrusy tang of the goat’s milk adds a little zing to this classic cheese.

2. Rush Creek Reserve by cheesemaker Andy Hatch, Uplands Cheese in Dodgeville. A perpetual favorite, even though this year marks the fourth year of its existence, this cheese is the perfect beginning or ending to a holiday meal. Cut away the top rind and then spoon into the creamy paste. Spread on a fresh-baked rustic baguette. Pure bliss.

1. Little Mountain by cheesemaker Chris Roelli, Roelli Cheese in Shullsburg. 2013 was definitely Chris’ year – with dual wins for his cheeses at the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest and American Cheese Society, Chris finally received well-deserved accolades for his stellar cheesemaking ability. Little Mountain is one of the best alpine cheeses on the U.S. market, rivaling the great Swiss Gruyeres.

Happy cheesy New Year!

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!