Jeanne Carpenter Uncategorized, uplands cheese

Seasonal Milk, Seasonal Cheese at Uplands

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A bit of the backstory:

Located on scenic Highway 23 between Dodgeville and Spring Green, Wisconsin, Uplands Cheese is one of the best known farmstead cheese plants in the nation. Its flagship cheese, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, is the only cheese in America to ever win both the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest and take Best in Show – three different years – at the American Cheese Society Judging Competition. Uplands is run by business partners Scott Mericka and Andy Hatch. Scott is the herdsman and Andy is the cheesemaker. Together, they and their families produce seasonal milk and seasonal cheese, two incredibly uncommon commodities in the United States, a country where everyone, it seems, wants their favorite food year-round.

Last week, we caught up with the pair just in time for evening milking and helped Scott bring in the cows from pasture. Then, we sat down with Andy in the cheese plant and talked about the difference seasonal milk makes in Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Rush Creek Reserve, and a new cheese he’s working on.

We arrive at Uplands Cheese just as Uplands herdsman Scott Mericka is coming in from building fence. He’s dressed in a bright blue t-shirt filled with holes, shorts that are a little too short, and knee-high rubber boots. I tell him I’ve never met a farmer before who wears shorts, and he laughs, and makes a joke that at least they’re not Daisy Dukes. We start walking out to the pasture to bring in the cows for the evening milking. We’ve gotten a lot of rain in southern Wisconsin this summer, and the pastures are unusually lush for late August.

“We’re milking a little over 200 cows right now and catching up on things that we couldn’t get done in the springtime,” Scott says. The cows at Uplands are rotationally grazed, which means the cows are moved to a different paddock every 12 hours with fresh grass. The cows are also bred seasonally, which means they all give birth to calves in the spring and are dry – or don’t need to be milked – for a few months in the dead of winter. This is the old-fashioned way of farming, long abandoned by most dairy farmers who like to get paid for milk year-round. But unlike Scott and Andy, most dairy farmers don’t own their own cheese factory.

“Most farmers don’t get a chance to own their milk market,” Scott says. “I have a way to control the milk price and volatility, which is really important for a young family. It’s nice for both Andy’s family and my family to be able to control the price we’re getting paid for our milk.”

At this point, we look up at the sky and see a thunderstorm is headed our way, so we let Scott do his thing with getting the cows in. They know that his whistle means it’s time to head to the barn.

We stand off to the side, and the cows slowly start walking past us on the way to the barn. It’s not raining yet, and one of them, a dark cow named Cocoa, walks right up to me and demands attention. “Ah, I see you found Cocoa, or that Cocoa found you,” says Scott, referring to the black cow that is currently head-butting me, demanding to be petted continuously.

After we get the cows up and into the barn, we head into the cheese plant, where cheesemaker Andy Hatch and Esther Hill have a table filled with dozens of plugs of Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Andy and Esther are evaluating several vats of cheese and invite us to participate. We take our time, because it’s August, and that means Andy’s not making cheese. That’s because August in Wisconsin is usually hot and dry, and neither the grass nor the milk usually hits exceptionally high quality standards. So, Scott and Andy instead sell their milk to another manufacturer, and take time to work on other stuff. For example, today, Scott’s been building fences, and Andy took the time to answer his email, which means Cheese Underground Radio is sitting at his table.

As we taste different vats of Pleasant Ridge Reserve, I ask Andy to talk a little about what seasonality of milk means to a cheesemaker.

“There are a couple of ways to look at it,” Andy says. “First, there’s the poetic way: that we are preserving the bounty of summer. We make cheese seven days a week, and the cows are in a different pasture every day. It’s almost a log of the season, as if we’re bottling time. And, then there’s the practical way: it’s a competitive strategy. Seasonal milk is giving our cheese the most distinctive flavor possible.”

Andy starts making Pleasant Ridge Reserve in the spring, after the cows have calved in the pastures, usually starting the first week in May. Then he and his team will make Pleasant Ridge every day for a solid 80 days. They take a break in August because of the weather. This year, he could have kept making cheese straight through August because of the mild weather and steady rains, but his cheese caves are full. That’s why he’s planning an expansion for more cheese aging space. He resumes making Pleasant Ridge again in September into October, and then switches to Rush Creek Reserve in October into November.

After Rush Creek season is over, Andy says he still has a few weeks of beautiful grass-based milk in early November. It is this period of the year where he is experimenting with a new cheese: a small-format soft cheese, which to date, has only been tasted by Andy and his team, and the farm’s pigs. He’s still perfecting a recipe and is in no rush to release a third cheese to the market.

“There are only so many times in a cheesemaker’s career where you’re at the drawing board and you can do all sorts of goofy stuff. Once you hone in on a cheese, and the market has expectations for it, now you’re talking about a life of refining and tweaking,” Andy says. “So, to be at the drawing board is fun. We’re playing around with different shapes – rounds, squares, pyramids. We’ve learned a certain amount about cultures and ripening techniques. This year we’ll use last year’s trials and narrow it down pretty quickly. We know more about what we want. But then again, there’s what we want, and then there’s what the market wants.”

I tell him that he’s already making two world-class famous cheeses, and maybe he’s earned the right to be a little selfish and make a third cheese that makes him happy. He demurs. “I’m in love with Pleasant Ridge Reserve, really,” he says. “I wouldn’t make anything else. And maybe we won’t in the long run, but I know there’s milk there that can be made into another cheese.”

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cheeseunderground Andy Hatch, rush creek reserve, uplands cheese, Wisconsin, Wisconsin cheese

Rush Creek Reserve: It’s What’s for Dinner

Ahh, Christmas. That magical time of the year when I drown out the sound of my neighbor’s holiday yard light show by cranking Weird Al on the wireless speakers and eating Rush Creek Reserve for dinner. I’m sure I’m not alone – with either Weird Al or Rush Creek –  as cheese lovers everywhere are currently eating the results of a long season of hard work for one Wisconsin company.

That’s because between September and November, the cows in the dairy barn at Uplands Cheese near Dodgeville got more sleep than their owner, Andy Hatch, maker of two of the most famous cheeses in America: Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Rush Creek Reserve. In the morning, Andy and company made Pleasant Ridge Reserve, the farmstead cheese that put Wisconsin on the map, and then from late afternoon until long past sunset, they crafted my favorite soft, bark-wrapped cheese: Rush Creek Reserve. I heartily thank Andy and his crew for making cheese 17 hours a day this fall – I am truly consuming the love of their labor.


In case you don’t know the backstory of Uplands Cheese, as co-owner and lead cheesemaker, Andy is the dutiful caretaker of the company, founded in 1994 by Mike and Carol Gingrich and Dan and Jeanne Patenaude. More than 20 years ago, the farming couples joined their herds and transitioned to a seasonal, pasture-based system. Three years ago, Andy and business partner Scott Mericka purchased the operation. Scott oversees 244 acres of grass and is the herdsman for 150 milking cows. Cows eat the farm’s grasses and produce milk that Andy makes into seasonal cheeses.

For a city boy who grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Andy is a born farmer who didn’t realize it until arriving at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. While studying anthropology and environmental science, he became engrossed with the science of agriculture, working on area vegetable farms, starting a community garden, and writing a thesis on urban agriculture.

“I found I really liked working on farms,” Andy says. “If I could have figured out a way to start a farm, that’s what I would have done. But unless you grow up on or inherit a farm, it’s virtually impossible to hurdle the capital investment that starting a farm takes.”

With farming still in the back of his mind, Andy returned to Wisconsin to work at the Michael Fields Institute in East Troy. For one year, he assisted famed Dr. Walter Goldstein on a ground-breaking corn breeding program. While the work satisfied Andy’s scientific side, it didn’t get his hands outside and in the soil. He regretfully gave his notice. Instead of accepting his resignation, Dr. Goldstein sent him to live with his mother-in-law in Norway.

“Working with Dr. Goldstein was an incredible experience, but I what I really wanted to do was farm. He knew that. So he sent me to Norway to stay with his recently widowed mother-in-law and help her get the family farm in shape to sell. I really had no idea what was in store for me,” Andy says.

He had traveled to Europe twice before with his parents, both wine enthusiasts, but he had never been to Norway. Immediately, the remoteness of staying with a 70-year-old woman named Unni on a fifth-generation goat dairy with no car, no computer, and no phone in the fjords of west Norway cleared his mind. He spent mornings hand milking 14 goats, never having milked an animal before. “For the first week, the muscles in my forearms were so sore I couldn’t grip a fork at supper,” Andy says.

After morning milking, Andy helped make cheese in a tiny, but surprisingly modern stainless steel vat in a small building 300 yards from the ocean. The routine of milking and making cheese suited him. Andy learned how to make cheese via sight, smell, and touch. He made hard, aged goat’s milk cheeses, which Unni sold to tourists at the ferry landing. After the daily dose of cheesemaking, Andy spent the afternoon in a hut stirring the day’s whey in a pot over a fire to make geitost. By evening, it was time to milk the goats again, eat a simple supper, and collapse into bed on a mattress stuffed with straw.

He stayed three months, long enough to help Unni settle affairs to sell the farm and make him a pair of socks from the hair of the farm dog, a Norwegian reindeer-herding pup named Knatchean. “It took me a month to learn how to say the dog’s name,” Andy says. He still has the socks.

From Norway, instead of going home, Andy headed to southern Europe. He had caught the cheesemaking bug. He roamed two years, making mountain cheeses in Austria, sheep cheeses in Tuscany, and goat cheeses in Ireland. He stayed a season or two in each location, earning his keep during the day with his cheesemaking labor, and earning a few coins at night by playing mandolin and fiddle in local taverns. For two years, he couldn’t decide which path to take: musician or cheesemaker. And then came a call from home.

“My mother called with the news that my dad was very ill, so I got on the first plane home and spent the summer with him in the hospital,” Andy says. That fall, his parents spent time recuperating at the family cottage in Door County. Andy followed and met Caitlin, an artist who became his wife. He took an agricultural short course at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, milked cows on area dairies, and apprenticed with cheesemakers to earn his Wisconsin cheesemakers license. He accepted a cheesemaking job at Uplands in 2007, married Caitlin in 2009, and, with her, copurchased Uplands Cheese three years ago, moving into a house on the Uplands farm. It’s where they are now raising their two children.

“Cheesemaking is the vehicle that allows me to stay on the farm,” Andy says. “It also satisfies my creative impulses, which is one of the reasons I spend so much time working on Rush Creek Reserve.”

Inspired by his experience of making Mont d’Or in the Jura region of France, Rush Creek Reserve is a serious, all-consuming labor of love. Andy cuts and stirs large curd by hand to protect its soft and delicate nature, and hand ladles curd into forms. It is then flipped, and drains overnight. The next morning, wheels are brined and handwrapped by spruce bark that’s been boiled and soaked in yeast and molds. As a raw milk cheese, Rush Creek is aged 60 days and then immediately shipped to retailers. It’s the type of cheese that, when eaten, is designed to be warmed with the top removed, and enjoyed with a spoon or bit of bread.

In Madison, Rush Creek Reserve is available right now at several outlets, although obviously I’m a bit partial to Metcalfe’s Markets. I even put bows on every wheel we sell at our Hilldale store.

As Andy and Caitlin look to the future, I’m sure they wonder if either of their children will want to be cheesemakers. In any case, Andy is planning on teaching them to play the violin and mandolin, his second great love to cheesemaking. His band, Point Five—a local group of musicians playing traditional, acoustic Americana music—plays numerous gigs in the region. “We’ve got enough instruments in this house that the kids will be able to play whatever they want to,” Caitlin says. “And if they’re lucky,” Andy adds, “I’ll even sing along.”

cheeseunderground Andy Hatch, martha stewart, pleasant ridge reserve, uplands cheese, Wisconsin cheese

Uplands Cheese Named Amercan Artisan of 2016

The accolades for Wisconsin artisan cheeses just keep rolling in this year. First, Roth’s Grand Cru Surchoix from Monroe won the World Championship Cheese Contest in March. Then Roelli Cheese in Shullsburg won the American Cheese Society’s Best in Show in July with Little Mountain. And this week, Martha Stewart named Uplands Cheese one of her 10 American Makers of 2016. Talk about the magical trifecta of cheesy goodness.

The cheesemaking crew at Uplands Cheese with Pleasant Ridge Reserve.

Uplands cheesemaker Andy Hatch picked up the award last week in New York, shaking hands and talking shop with movers and shakers from around the world. Each year for the past five years, Martha Stewart and the editors of Martha Stewart Living magazine have selected 10 artisans for their entrepreneurial passion and contributions to their communities in the fields of food, style, design, and technology.

“I’d like to thank Martha Stewart and the editors of Martha Stewart Living for not only valuing the quality of our cheese, but also for recognizing that our success can serve as an example to other family farms looking to add value to their milk. I spent years as a cheesemaking apprentice in Europe, and there’s nowhere I’d rather make cheese than in southern Wisconsin. We have everything we need right here to make world-class cheese,” Andy said.

As you all know, Uplands is best-known for Pleasant Ridge Reserve, an alpine-style cheese made in the spring, summer and fall months when cows are out on fresh pasture. Pleasant Ridge Reserve is the most-awarded cheese in American history and the only cheese to have won both the American Cheese Society’s and U.S. Cheese Championship’s Best of Show.

Cheesemaker Andy Hatch

Of course, this time of year, Hatch and the rock star cheesemaking team are finishing up making Rush Creek Reserve, a soft-ripened cheese wrapped in spruce bark that has developed a cult following since its 2010 debut. The cheese, only available mid-November through January, sells out almost immediately after its release. Beginning November 14, Rush Creek Reserve will be available online direct from Uplands Cheese or at specialty cheese retailers nationwide.

Side note: I’m driving to Uplands on Nov. 14 and picking up the first 30 cases we’ll be selling at Metcalfe’s Markets in Madison and Milwaukee. I feel like it’s the perfect way to break in my new car, because really, which is better, a new car scent, or the aroma of washed rind cheese?

Congratulations to the full list of 2016 Martha Stewart American Made Honorees:

•    21c Museum Hotels – Louisville, KY
•    Eagle Street Rooftop Farm – Brooklyn, NY
•    Girls Who Code – New York City
•    Harry’s Berries – Oxnard, CA
•    Loki Fish Company – Seattle, WA
•    M&S Schmalberg – New York City
•    NYCitySlab – Yonkers, New York
•    Stony Creek Colors – Nashville, TN
•    Sweetgreen – Washington, DC
•    Uplands Cheese – Dodgeville, WI

And special congrats to Andy and his team at Uplands Cheese. Thank you for making exceptional cheese, and more importantly, thank you for being good people. Wisconsin adores you.

cheeseunderground ACS, american cheese society, Andy Hatch, lifetime achievement award, mike gingrich, pleasant ridge reserve, uplands cheese, Wisconsin cheese

Mike & Carol Gingrich Awarded ACS Lifetime Achievement Award

Mike Gingrich and Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese.
Photo by Uriah Carpenter

In March, Uplands Cheese co-owner and lead cheesemaker Andy Hatch asked Ari Weinzweig and me if we might write letters of support asking the American Cheese Society to consider awarding Mike and Carol Gingrich the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

I asked Andy if he could send me the nominating document he had submitted, as I wanted my letter of support to fill in any gaps and convince the ACS that the founders and creators of Pleasant Ridge Reserve in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, were indeed so very worthy of the award. After all, past recipients include some serious cheese icons, including Ig Vella, Dan Carter, Kathleen Shannon Finn, Daphne Zepos, Ari Wienzweig, Cathy Strange, Ricki Carroll, John Greeley and Steve Jenkins. No one deserves to be in that list more than Wisconsin artisan cheese pioneers Mike and Carol Gingrich.

Photo by Uriah Carpenter

As I watched Andy present, and then Mike accept, the ACS Lifetime Achievement Award award on behalf of Carol and himself last week at the annual ACS conference in Des Moines, I remembered why Andy’s original nomination papers had brought me to tears. Nowhere in the history of a master and apprentice relationship has a former apprentice (now a rock star cheesemaker in demand at every cheese event in the country) given so much credit to the two people who took a chance on their successor. And never before has the master given most of the credit to the industry and the people who surround him. You all might call it “Wisconsin nice.” I call it being humble and kind.

When Mike & Carol Gingrich asked for my help in spreading the gospel of Wisconsin artisan cheese, I said yes. When Mike & Carol asked me to join a committee or help with an event, I said yes. And I said yes because I respected the time, sweat and money they had given to the industry. Mike & Carol Gingrich will never, in a million years, take credit for anything. But they have changed everything.

A standing ovation for Mike Gingrich.
Photo by Uriah Carpenter

An excerpt from Andy’s nomination papers, repeated for the audience at the award presentation:

“Mike and Carol were pioneers in the renaissance of grass-based dairy and farmstead cheesemaking, who had the vision to revitalize old-world traditions in modern ways. Their vision began in the early 1980s, when, together with neighboring dairy farmer and eventual Uplands Cheese co-owners, Dan and Jeanne Patenaude, they were among the first dairy farmers in the country to utilize electric fencing as a way to intensively manage rotational grazing patterns.

“By the late 1990s, when Mike and Dan had combined their herds and purchased a 300-acre grazing farm on Pleasant Ridge, they were producing wonderfully distinctive grass-fed milk and began looking for a way to take advantage of that flavor. After a serendipitous meeting with Ari Weinzweig at the 1998 ACS Conference, Mike became convinced of his milk’s potential for alpine-style cheese. Although his idea came in a period when small Wisconsin cheesemakers were contracting, consolidating or just plain quitting, Mike drew up a business plan for a raw-milk, farmstead cheese named Pleasant Ridge Reserve. As with rotational grazing, he saw an opportunity to take advantage of old traditions in new uncommon ways.

Andy continued: “When I bought the farm from Mike in 2014, he gave me a copy of that original business plan. Incredibly, he had done exactly what he had planned in 1998. His was not an easy path to envision back then, and it certainly wasn’t easy to navigate. Mike’s initial vision of a raw, grass-fed, farmstead cheese struck many as misguided and doomed to fail. When it was proven successful, his refusal to compromise those principles in the name of expansion seemed out of character for an American cheese business. But Mike has the rare combination of a mind sharply attuned to business (he earned an MBA from Harvard before milking cows) and a heart that gravitates to simplicity and authenticity. As he guided Uplands Cheese through growth, awards and recognition, he never wavered from his founding principles, and as he became an impressively profitable cheesemaker, he still provided an opportunity for me, his apprentice, to share in the success and eventually take the reins.

Bob Wills and Mike Gingrich.
Photo by Uriah Carpenter

“Despite his obvious accomplishments, Mike never took undue credit for the success of his cheese, and he recognized that his company was riding a wave propelled by many people” from the scientists at the Center for Dairy Research who helped him develop the recipe, to Bob Wills, who opened up his cheese plant to allow Mike and Carol make the first batches of Pleasant Ridge Reserve.

Andy concluded: “People in our industry regard Mike not only as a successful cheesemaker, but also as someone who plowed ground that became fertile for the rest of us. It’s rare in any industry to find such a celebrated producer with his humility and altruism. While our larger food culture at times seems to revolve around its own narcissistic gravity, the ACS does well to honor a career based on core values of education, networking and sustainability. Mike and Carol Gingrich have embodied those values since they began milking cows in 1980. This is our chance to honor what they have achieved and given to all of us.”

Congratulations to Mike and Carol Gingrich, and thank you for putting Wisconsin artisan cheese on the map.

cheeseunderground Andy Hatch, bleu mont dairy, cheese, fda, raw milk cheese, uplands cheese, willi lehner, Wisconsin cheese

The Beginning of the End of Raw Milk Cheese in Wisconsin?

Wheels of Bleu Mont Bandaged Cheddar, once made
exclusively from raw milk, are now pasteurized
because Cheesemaker Willi Lehner can’t find a cheese
plant that will today allow raw milk through its doors.

I have been exceptionally lucky to have been in the right place at the right time most of my life. But no luckier than in 2003, when I took a job at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and got drafted into a small team that would go on to help artisan cheesemakers launch a dairy renaissance in America’s Dairyland.

Since then, I’ve been privileged to watch dozens and dozens of artisan cheesemakers start-up and craft what have become national and international award-winning cheeses, and many of those cheeses have been made from raw milk.

That’s why it’s particularly painful for me to put the last part of that sentence in past tense: “have been made from raw milk.” Because whether the American consumer is aware of it or not, many Wisconsin-made artisan cheeses that were only a year ago made from raw milk, are now pasteurized.

Last week, I got lucky again – this time I was in the right place at the right time to escort a leading French scientist to visit Wisconsin cheesemakers making raw milk cheeses. Christine de Sainte Marie is a senior research fellow at the French Institute National Institute for Agricultural Research. Her current research is on the political economics of reconnecting farming, food and the environment. Instead of slow food or fast food, she is studying people who are “farming in the middle” e.g. farmers using sustainable farming methods or cheesemakers making artisan cheese, but who are not certified organic. And she came to Wisconsin to study raw milk cheese.

So you can imagine my surprise when we arrived at Bleu Mont Dairy for our pre-arranged tour with one of Wisconsin’s original raw milk cheesemakers, Willi Lehner – once described by the New York Times as an “off the grid rock star” – only to find out he hasn’t made a raw milk cheese in months. Why? With no creamery of his own, he relies on renting space at other Wisconsin cheese factories to make his award-winning creations. And now, because of increased scrutiny and inspection protocols from federal inspectors, none of those factories will allow raw milk cheese out their doors.

“I feel there is an underlying fear in the whole cheese industry, that drains away the passion of our craft. And one of the results will be less and less real raw-milk cheese,” Willi said.

Brenda Jensen, cheesemaker and owner at Hidden Springs Creamery near Westby, agrees. Brenda makes more than a half dozen different cheeses, all made from pasteurized milk. She makes one cheese from raw milk: Ocooch Mountain, an alpine-style beauty that many have compared to a sheep milk’s salute to Gruyere.

Last week, this 50-time ACS award winner for farmstead sheep milk cheeses had a FDA inspector come to her door and ask for 20 wheels of ONLY her raw milk cheeses for testing. The inspector wanted the chain of ingredients, where they came from, all lots associated from them and a make sheet with all info. None of those requests are out of line, so Brenda spent several hours reviewing what was needed. But she kept thinking: “Why just the raw milk cheese?”

“Instead of the intimidation, I would rather have the inspectors help train me on what issues they are seeing with raw milk cheeses, and how better to safeguard against having these become a problem,” Brenda said. She is now considering stopping raw milk cheese production.

Bruce Workman, at Edelweiss Creamery in Monticello, decided last year that making raw milk cheese was no longer worth the risk or the headache of increased FDA scrutiny. His Edelweiss Emmentaler, traditionally made with raw milk, is now pasteurized.

Meanwhile, some cheesemakers, such as Andy Hatch at Uplands Cheese, remain committed to making raw milk cheese. With no pasteurizer in the plant, Andy crafts the thrice-awarded ACS Best in Show Pleasant Ridge Reserve on a seasonal schedule, making cheese only when cows are grazing on fresh pasture.

On our visit to his farm last week, Andy told Christine he plans on making his raw-milk Rush Creek Reserve this year (last year, he suspended production, because of uncertainty in forthcoming FDA regulations). But he admits, his passion for making cheese is now coated by anxiety.

“What’s different now is that the decision-making behind creating a new cheese is laced with an apprehension over unclear and changing regulations,” Andy said. “Whereas before my first instinct was always towards developing something unique and expressive, now I instinctively worry first about making an acceptable product, and then second about making it delicious.”

Despite uncertainty over FDA’s potential changes with regulating raw milk cheeses, Andy hopes cheesemakers will stay the course. In an update to ACS members today, it was noted that the FDA is embracing an approach in regulating raw milk cheese that will “involve continuing outreach to stakeholders and expanding the conversation” – especially about the aging process for soft-ripened cheeses – before making any decisions on next steps in changing the 60-day rule for raw milk cheese in the United States.

“We, as cheesemakers can’t allow those concerns to trump our efforts to make expressive, distinctive cheese. If we’re given a chance to prove with testing that our cheeses are safe, than those goals need not be mutually exclusive,” Andy said.

cheeseunderground fda, raw milk, raw milk cheese, regulations, rush creek reserve, uplands cheese, Wisconsin cheese

Rush Creek Reserve Production Stopped By FDA Rule Uncertainty

Andy Hatch with one of his first experimental batches of
Rush Creek Reserve on May 20, 2010. The cheese was
officially released that fall to great acclaim. Photo by
Jeanne Carpenter

Uncertainty over how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will rule in regards to a number of pending raw milk cheese regulations has claimed its first official victim: Rush Creek Reserve by Uplands Cheese near Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

In an email to industry professionals this morning, Uplands co-owner and lead cheesemaker Andy Hatch broke the sad news that he will not be making Rush Creek this year.

“It’s disappointing news, I know, and we hope that it’s not permanent. Food safety officials have been unpredictable, at best, in their recent treatment of soft, raw-milk cheeses, and until our industry is given clear and consistent guidance, we are forced to stop making these cheeses,” Andy said.

Andy added it’s not a decision he and his team came to easily. “Hopefully, our government officials will soon agree on how to treat traditional cheesemaking, and we can all return to the cheeses that are so important to us.”

So what would make one of America’s most awarded cheese companies stop production of a cheese that debuted four years ago to great acclaim and that the New York Times described as “fluent and satiny, with a rich, slightly grassy aroma and a mild flavor that hints of smoke and pork.”?

Let us count the ways:

1. The FDA is currently reviewing the 60-day aging rule it imposed in 1949 on American cheesemakers making raw milk cheeses, with many academics speculating the rule will be increased to 90 or 120 aging days within the next year. For an excellent recap and history of how the current 60-day raw milk cheese rule came into being, check out this article by Bill Marler. Remember, Rush Creek Reserve is a raw milk cheese aged 60 days. It is patterned on the magnificent Vacherin Mont d’Or, of which I consumed an entire wheel at one sitting while in London on April 4. No regrets.

2. The newest focus of FDA food safety officials appears to be enforcement of non-toxigenic E.Coli levels in raw milk cheese. Unbeknownst to almost anyone in the industry, in 2010, the FDA changed the standard (see top of page 7) for non-toxigenic, E.Coli in raw milk from  less than 10,000 to  less than 10 MPN per gram. This happened even after the FDA’s own policy review team (see top of page 7) in 2009 suggested lowering it to only “100 MPN per gram in two or more subsamples or greater than 1,000 MPN per gram in one or more subsamples.” The FDA has begun to enforce this new policy by purchasing raw milk cheeses from distributors, testing them for pathogens, and then showing up at cheese factories for a 3-day investigative inspection. Every cheesemaker I talked to says it is virtually impossible to consistently produce a raw milk cheese with less than 10 parts of non-toxigenic E. Coli per gram. Goodbye, raw milk cheese.

3. Aging cheese on wooden boards may or may not be a dead issue. Two months ago, after a mid-level FDA bureaucrat declared the agency would no longer permit American cheeses to be aged on wooden boards, the entire U.S. cheese eating population erupted in an uproar that made the FDA back down just three days later. In Wisconsin alone, 33 million pounds of cheese are aged on wooden boards, including Rush Creek Reserve.

So to recap, between raw-milk aging rules, new pathogen policies, and the threat of whether the FDA is really backing down on the use of wooden boards, one of America’s great cheeses is no more. The death of Rush Creek Reserve should act as the canary in the coal mine for all American raw milk artisan cheeses, because just as our great American artisan cheese movement is in serious full swing, the FDA has basically declared a war on raw milk cheese.

P.S. Mind you, of course, the FDA pubicly insists they have nothing against raw milk cheese. At the American Cheese Society conference in Sacramento in July, a total of seven – yes seven – officials from the FDA politely attended a public luncheon after meeting privately with the ACS board of directors. Their fearless leader, Mike Taylor, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine, spoke to us industry professionals for 45 minutes at the luncheon. What he said can best be summed up with his opening words: “We are from the government and we’re here to help you.”

cheeseunderground Andy Hatch, pleasant ridge reserve, rush creek reserve, scott mericka, uplands cheese, Wisconsin cheese

A New Day at Uplands Cheese

Uplands Cheese, home to the much-awarded Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese, is officially under new ownership. Cheesemaker Andy Hatch and Herdsman Scott Mericka, both of whom began as apprentices years ago at Uplands, announced today they have purchased the dairy farm and cheese company from its founders, Mike Gingrich and Dan Patenaude.

Most industry folks know that Hatch and Mericka have been managing the farm since 2010, leading to a gradual transition to the new management. Andy says the official papers were signed in February, and Uplands Cheese now officially belongs to a new generation.

Mike and Carol Gingrich are pleased with the transfer. “This has been a long time in the works and we couldn’t be more pleased to see the farm, the cows and the cheese pass into such capable hands,” Mike says.

Uplands Cheese was founded in 2000, when Gingrich and Patenaude began crafting Pleasant Ridge Reserve with the grass-fed milk of their cows. In 2001, the cheese vaulted to fame after winning the coveted Best of Show award at the annual American Cheese Society competition. It repeated the honor in 2005 and again in 2010, while also being named U.S. Champion Cheese in 2003. To date, Pleasant Ridge Reserve is the only cheese to have won ACS Best of Show three times, and is the only cheese to have won both of the major, national competitions.

Hatch, who has overseen cheese production since 2007, believes the Pleasant Ridge Reserve crafted today is better than ever. “We’ve continued to improve our pastures and our herd, and every year we refine our work in the ripening rooms, to the point where almost every batch is as good as the standout batches of several years ago,” he said.

Pleasant Ridge Reserve is made only in the summer months, while the farm’s cows are on pasture. In 2010, Hatch added a second cheese to the Uplands repertoire. Rush Creek Reserve is a soft-ripened cheese wrapped in a strip of spruce bark and made with the hay-fed milk of autumn months. Rush Creek Reserve cheese quickly attainted cult status in the cheese world, and continues to sell out quickly each November and December, when it’s sold across the country.

Congratulations to Uplands Cheese! We can’t wait to see what you do next.

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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!

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A Tour of Artisan Cheeses in the Driftless Region

This past week, I did what anyone who needs an excuse to go see some of her favorite cheesemakers would do: I organized a two-day artisan cheesemaker and craft beer tour of the Driftless Region. Fifteen members of Wisconsin Cheese Originals came along for a backstage pass to some of America’s finest food artisans.

First stop: Uplands Cheese near Dodgeville. Cheesemaker Andy Hatch, son August and wife Caitlin were amazing hosts, showing off one of America’s most famous farmstead cheese plants, home to Pleasant Ridge Reserve.

We tasted three ages of Pleasant Ridge Reserve – 5 months, 11 months and 15 months.

We also got a sneak peak at baby Rush Creek Reserves, which will hit the market in about a month. This washed-rind cheese, wrapped in spruce bark, is aging nicely in the aging rooms. I can’t wait to taste that yummy gooiness of a cheese — it’s been too long since I had my Rush Creek fix.

After waving goodbye to Andy, Caitlin and Baby August, we were off to Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point. Owners Tony and Julie Hook are always the most gracious of hosts, and Tony was in an especially good mood, just having made his very first batch of goat milk blue the day before. He says he’ll know in six months whether his new goat blue (yet to be named) is a success, but with Tony’s track record, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a winner.

One of my favorite places to visit is Hooks’ cold storage, packed floor to ceiling with Cheddar just waiting to be eaten. I saw some 17-year Cheddar in there — fingers crossed it hits the market in the next year or two!

After a local lunch of pasty, corn casserole and pecan pie at the Brewery Creek cafe in Mineral Point, we were off to Potosi Brewery for a museum tour and beer tasting (because nothing goes better with cheese than beer, right?). The always amazing Sara Hill of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board put together a full Potosi beer and Wisconsin cheese course together for us. My favorite pairing of the day: Potosi Cave Ale and Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Thank you, Sara!

After a four-course local-foods dinner and overnight at the Old Oak Inn Bed & Breakfast in Soldiers Grove, we were off bright and early to Hidden Springs Creamery near Westby. Owners Dean and Brenda Jensen took us on a wagon ride to get up and close and personal with their sheep, and trek through a little of Amish country. Aren’t we a good looking group? Check out this 20-second video of the Driftless Region.

Brenda gave us the full tour of her farmstead cheese factory, milking parlor, barns, farm bed and breakfast, and treated us to a tasting of the many award-winning sheep’s milk cheeses she makes by hand.

We were then treated to an on-farm lunch catered by Rooted Spoon in Viroqua. Owner Dani Lind made us some Hidden Springs Ocooch Mountain cheese cornbread & jalapeno honey butter, local greens salad with roasted beets, cucumbers, Hidden Springs Driftless cheese, sausage, pepitas, & fresh mint vinaigrette, fresh local fruit and some tasty purple basil & aronia berry lemonade. What a treat to eat a meal right from the area from which the ingredients were sourced.

Our last stop of the trip was Nordic Creamery, where we were greeted by owner Sarah Bekkum and given a VIP tour of the farmstead butter, cheese and ice cream plant. After a butter and cheese tasting, we ended our day with an ice cream cone made right at Nordic Creamery.

Thanks to everyone who joined me on the tour, and special thanks to our hosts and hostesses who showed off the Driftless Region with pride. I have no doubt we will be returning, and returning very soon!

All photos by Uriah Carpenter. Copyright 2012.

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Wisconsin Cheese & Sommelier-Mixologist Duel

Sommeliers Ruben “Biggest Toad in the Puddle” Mendez
and Aaron “Burr” Johnson

Every once in a while I luck out and happen to be in the right place at the right time. Lucky for me, last night was one of those rare whiles.

After spending an hour on the capital square persuading total strangers to wear cheeseheads and stroll casually behind a staged shot of Wisconsin cheesemakers Chris Roelli, Andy Hatch and Willi Lehner waiting at a bus stop (we were shooting video for the official 2013 American Cheese Society introductory film, but more on that later), I tagged along to an event at L’Etoile where the trio were the guests of honor.

Fortunately, I was already gussied up for the video shoot, which turned out to be a good thing, as little did I know I was walking into a sold-out, 45-person sit-down Wisconsin Cheese and Sommelier-Mixologist Duel in the private back room at one of the best restaurants in America.

Holy crap. These are not typically the kinds of things I attend, as I a) usually drink Diet Coke and b) usually wear flip flops. But thanks to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, I found a seat at the Texas Stagecoach table and listened to directions that seemed to require me tasting six cheeses (no problem), six glasses of wine (could be a problem) and six alcoholic mixed beverages (yes, Houston, we have a definite problem). 

Mixologists Casey “The Kid” Kammel and
Nic “The Quick & The Dead” Waerzeggers

The event was billed as a duel between what paired best with cheese: wine or chemical cocktails. On on the sommelier side, our hosts were Aaron “Burr” Johnson and Ruben “Biggest Toad in the Puddle” Mendez. On the Mixologist side were Carey “The Kid” Kammel and Nic “The Quick & The Dead” Waerzeggers. At my right was cheesemaker Andy Hatch, who seemed as baffled by the event as I was. I looked to my right, where cheesemaker Willi Lehner was sitting, trying to make small talk with guests at the High Noon table, and behind me, where Chris Roelli was seated at the Dusty Tumbleweeds table. We all shrugged our shoulders, as if to say, well, what the hell, and plowed in. 

First up: Uplands 10-month Pleasant Ridge Reserve, paired with what I think was a Pinot Noir (In good news, Lindsay Christians from 77 Square was also at the event, so be sure to read her future musings, as my beverage expertise is pretty much limited to diet soda), and a drink called “Once Upon A Time in Wisconsin”, which consisted of Lillet Blonde, orange juice, lemon juice, simple syrup and Lakefront Wisconsinite beer. (Andy and I decided it tasted like a Mimosa). So far, so good.

Next was Roelli Cheese Marigold, a clothbound, cave-aged, jack-style cheese with the nuttiness of an Alpine cheese. Made from grazed milk, the cheese carries a deep yellow color (hence its name) and is not yet on the market. Look for it closer to the holidays. Marigold was paired with (again, I really have no idea) some white wine, which was very good, and a concoction that tasted somewhere between root beer and bacon. Let’s just say the cheese was the highlight of this particular pairing.

Third was a Bleu Mont “Mystery Cheese,” which was actually a sheep’s milk cheese inspired by Willi’s recent trip to Italy and Switzerland. This is the first time he’s made cheese with sheep milk. At just 60 days told, this raw milk beauty will be even better in another month. It was paired with Gruner Veltliner from Austria and Kita’s Wry Redemption (perhaps a play on Willi’s partner’s name Q’itas), consisting of Redemption Rye, St. Germain, soda water and a lavender dip.

Then it was intermission. Which meant Arthur Ircink (the genius behind the camera at Wisconsin Foodie) and I rushed out to get a shot of my car’s license plate driving away while it was still light out (again this was for the aforementioned ACS video, but more on that later). After “driving away” six or seven times and then backing up into my original parking spot, we hoofed it back to L’Etoile in time for the fourth pairing, which was Uplands 24-month Pleasant Ridge Reserve (an OMG this is so good cheese), paired with a Sangiovese and a drink called “.01 Parts Wine”, which was actually part champagne currant, Ransom Old Tom Gin, Galliano-Tart Cherry pipette and Sauvignon Blanc. Awesome pairing. Hands down, my favorite.

Moving into the home stretch, we had two pairings left. At this point, I have to admit things get a little fuzzy and my notes seem to end. Turns out chemical cocktails are WAY stronger than my usual Diet Coke, so I didn’t even get a picture of the Bleu Mont Reserve Bandaged Cheddar and “Fist Full of Blueberries” drink, or the Roelli Dunbarton Blue and Pintar a Cambechana, which was a mixture of cherry-ginger sauce painted on the inside of a wine glass, mixed with Caonton ginger Cognac, rum, and Mexican Coke. I do remember it was very pretty.

All in all, it was an amazing night, and I had a ton of fun with some of my favorite people, including some intense giggling with Sara Hill, seated on my left, who assured me it was perfectly okay to dip my cheese into a glass of wine to get the full effect of a pairing. I have no idea which pairing actually won and who left with the adorable miniature silver trophies, but it was all in good fun.

As for the American Cheese Society video shoot — well, you’ll have just have to wait until the video’s premier in Raleigh, North Carolina in three weeks, when Sara Hill, Bob Wills and I introduce it at this year’s American Cheese Society, and prepare to welcome 1,000 people to Madison in 2013, when the conference is hosted at Monona Terrace. Until then, I leave you with this parting shot. Who says Wisconsin cheesemakers don’t have a sense of humor?