Better than cheddar The grass must be lush—soft, green and thick. Out in Dodgeville at Uplands Cheese Company, grass like this only grows from May to October and sometimes not even then, if the weather doesn’t cooperate. It’s the flavor of this crisp summer grass that comes through in the taste of the Uplands Cheese Company’s specialty cheese, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, which is made of aged, raw milk and is comparable to French Gruyere; although it defies easy classification. In the history of cheese making, Pleasant Ridge Reserve is the only cheese to win Best Overall Cheese at the U.S. Cheese Championship (2003) and Best of Show at the American Cheese Society (2001), the only two national cheese competitions. This cheese is a far cry from the big orange blocks typically found in grocery store coolers. The nation and the world know Wisconsin for its cheese. and Jeanne Carpenter, communication specialist at the new DBIC , wants to keep it that way, as do Wisconsin cheese producers like Mike Gingrich, an owner of Uplands Cheese Company. According to Carpenter, for the state to stay a big-name player in the industry, Wisconsinites need to think more like Californians, who have, arguably, in recent years swept the dairy market right out from under the Midwest competition. The mission of the DBIC is to get Wisconsin cheese makers producing and raking in the profits from the specialty products America is clamoring for. Carpenter, along with 14 other consultants from around the world who work for the DBIC, offers advice to Wisconsin cheese makers daily via the Internet and over the phone. A consultant from New Zealand offers technical information about equipment. A consultant from the Netherlands helps guide people who want to relocate a cheese operation to Wisconsin. And an in-state consultant offers expert advice about how to design cheese labels. “She’s our label expert; she knows everything there is to know about cheese labels,” says Carpenter. The DBIC opened its doors this April, only it doesn’t have real doors because it’s a virtual operation (www.dbicusa.org) supported by a $2 million federal grant meant to reinvigorate the state’s dairy sector. U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl advocated on the federal level for the grant that got the DBIC up and running. “He’s a good friend of the Wisconsin cheese maker,” Carpenter says. “Helping out the dairy industry was one of his personal goals during this term in office.” With Gingrich as one of its success stories and 70 other clients, the DBIC seems to be doing its job. “We thought, before we started, that it might be hard to get people interested in what we wanted to do,” Carpenter says. “We thought there might be a resistance to change. But what we found was that people in this state have a built-up passion, a built-up excitement. Some people come from families that have milked cows for three generations, and they don’t want to struggle anymore. They want to make good cheeses, and they want to turn a profit and they want to know how to do it, and that’s where we come in.” The center’s goal is to increase the volume of specialty cheeses produced in the state by 25 percent in the next five years. Carpenter says the way to make money and to build a reputation these days in the cheese industry is to create specialty products, particularly a “signature cheese,” which she defines as a cheese no other cheese maker has made before or would be able to reproduce. “Some of these cheeses are aged in caves,” she says. “Some of them are made from milk that comes from cows that only feed on certain types of grass. Some of them are aged for a particular amount of time. There’s always something that makes them unique.” Gingrich’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve is the perfect example of a signature cheese. Gingrich only makes this one kind of cheese and he can’t make enough of it to fill demand. This year, he produced 33,000 pounds, selling at $25 a pound. Gingrich boosted production after he hooked up with the DBIC. The center helped him design his own cheese factory, and thanks to sound guidance, he managed to get up and running by the end of summer. Now he’ll make all of his cheese on the same farm where his cows graze. An on-site cheese factory is more economical. No longer does Gingrich truck milk to a factory in Plain to use another cheese maker’s equipment. The popularity of ethnic cuisine, the Food Network, serious cooking and travel have made Americans more willing to gobble up unique cheeses like Gingrich’s. “I ate some cheese while I was visiting a friend in Germany,” John Sacia, a 22-year old from Galesville says. “When I got back to the states, I started to hunt around for the same kinds of cheeses—they were pretty different from your basic cheddar.” “The best way to sum it up is to say America’s palette has become more mature. We see growth in hand-made cheeses,” Robert Frie says. Frie works as the operations manager for Roth Kase in Monroe, one of the largest producers of Gruyere in the United States. Gruyere gives fondue its distinctive sharp, dry flavor. Wisconsin competes with California to be the center of the cheese industry says Frie. Because of the move in the west toward huge-scale dairy operations, California’s milk production surpassed Wisconsin’s in 1993. Industry experts expect to see cheese production follow the same trend because California cheese makers can buy milk cheaply and get more of it. Jessica Marinelli, who moved to Wisconsin from California, says, “Wisconsin cheese is not as salty or flavorful and it’s much softer than California cheese. Also, it seems California has a much larger selection of cheeses that are not only really good, but produced right in California.” The phenomenon isn’t limited to California. Out east, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are also turning out excellent goat and raw-milk cheeses. Historically, milk production in Wisconsin has always been a little low, at least in relation to how much milk is needed to produce dairy products in the state, says Carpenter. Wisconsin has always produced more cheese than it has produced milk to make the cheese with. “As a state, we fall 10 to 15 percent below the demand,” Carpenter says. Because specialty cheeses sell at higher prices, Carpenter keeps telling cheese makers in Wisconsin the same thing over and over again: make unusual cheese. “It’s where the money is at,” she says. “For the amount of milk used, you make more money if you produce a specialty cheese than if you produce standard block cheddar—and you don’t have as much competition since you’ve carved out your own niche.” Gingrich has carved out his own niche with Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Gingrich says the grass must be a perfect height for his cows to graze. Gingrich, his wife and another couple they work with are “farmsteaders,” meaning they produce the milk for the cheese they make—something that is only viable in the specialty cheese market, where profits justify the extra expenses. Gingrich and his wife make the cheese while the other couple takes care of milk production. And it all happens on a single farm. “We have 300 acres, which we divided into 20 pastures,” Gingrich says. “Every day in the summer the cows are moved to a new pasture. That way none of the grass gets eaten down. And we can’t have it go to seed either. At that point it’s lost a lot of its nutritional value. You have to keep one eye on the grass, one eye on the weather and one eye on the cows.” This kind of attention to detail can only happen when the cheese maker takes care of his or her own milk supply. “It’s not the same for these huge cheese operations where the milk comes in in tankers,” Gingrich says. He didn’t have time this year to hold a grand opening at his new cheese factory; he was too busy making cheese. Gingrich’s operation is at the top of the list of success stories the DBIC is excited about. “Over the past four years, 30 state companies have put $200 million into modernizing or creating cheese plants, and Wisconsin is now putting out 50 million more pounds of product as a result,” says Carpenter. “That’s a big change over a short period of time.” To get cheese makers started in producing their own signature cheese and other specialty cheeses, the DBIC refers clients to what they call “incubators”—cheese factories owned by veteran cheese makers willing to share their expertise. Bob Wills, owner of Cedar Grove, a cheese shop and factory, is one of these veteran cheese makers. Cheese makers routinely bring Willis milk and tell him they want to make a signature cheese. Wills makes his own cheese six days a week. For one day a week the factory turns into a laboratory where he guides other cheese makers through experimentation. Wills helped Gingrich develop Pleasant Ridge Reserve. The DBIC wants to encourage more small and up-and-coming cheese makers to form these types of connections. Heading west on Highway 14, I drive out to Cedar Grove. The dairy is outside Spring Green in the tiny village of Plain. With cropped hair and casual black jeans, store employee Marlene Dilley stands behind the counter, chatting with a young man who works in the plant. When she sees me come in, she gets out a map of the Plain area to teach me about this slice of rural Wisconsin. “The stars show how many cheese makers there were within a 10-mile radius in the early 1900s. Cedar Grove is the only one left,” she says. The handmade map, made of poster board, markers and gold star-shaped stickers, shows where 24 cheese makers once had family operations. Inside the plant, 22,000 pounds of milk fill a rectangular vat to the brim. A worker throws handfuls of salt onto thousands of cheese curds as they cook in another vat at the opposite end of the plant. All workers wear hairnets. The plant is meticulously clean and maintained. The stainless steel glistens. Before leaving Cedar Grove, I paw through the open-topped cooler in the store piled full of specialty cheeses. I sample an organic Monterey jack, an aged brick and a limburger. And sure enough, I spot a few pale orange wedges of Gingrich’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve. The organic Monterey jack has a squeaky texture and full flavor. The limburger has a soft texture and tastes of salt and of pepper, in that order. The aged brick has a pungent smell but a light, slightly buttery taste. Before I sample Pleasant Ridge Reserve for myself, I remember Carpenter telling me the cheese goes well with fresh, sliced pears. “It’s a semi-hard cheese with a hint of earthy flavor,” she says. “It has a strong, complex taste, at moments both sweet and sharp. You can taste the grass that the cows fed on.” And Carpenter is right; there is something different about the Gingrich’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve. I don’t know if I’d say it tastes of grass, but I could swear the earthy favors do come through. As Carpenter says simply, “Sometimes it’s just the feeling that you’re eating something special that makes all the difference. And I think that’s what people want.” |
