A Fall Wisconsin Cheese Tour | The Cheese Professor

Contributor David Phillips recently participated in the Wisconsin Cheese Tour organized by Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, and while he will soon produce a few articles from the experience, he just can’t wait to tell you about the experience.

While catching my breath on the final day whirlwind three-day tour of cheesemakers and farms across the southern third of Wisconsin, I decided I had to share my impressions. On the first full day, our group of 15 mongers and professionals found ourselves peering into a vat of warming milk with Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese. Artisan cheese fans know that’s not just any old liquid, but milk destined to become one of two great cheeses—in this case, Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Rush Creek Reserve was also in production, with seasonal workers brushing and flipping young cheeses.

A few minutes later, we were hiking across a pasture to catch the attention of the closed herd that Uplands has maintained for more than 25 years. Some among us had our hands licked. This was my first time in these pastures, but having followed the story of Uplands since 2001, it felt as if I were coming home.

I paused on occasion to catch messages from my better half, who was at the same time on a working tour of Spain and Rome to learn about the life of Saint Ignatius. Her group would have an audience with the Pope that day. Our tour group had lunch with Andy Hatch, then visited Hook’s Creamery’s 137-year old facility, and another tiny, beautiful creamery where Anna Landmark makes her wonderful Landmark Creamery cheeses. I’m thinking that of the two groups, ours was having at least as much of a spiritual experience as the group in Rome.

The Wisconsin tour was organized by Molly Browne, education director at Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, and those selected for the group were primarily cheese scholars (so designated upon completion of the curriculum of the organization’s relatively-new Cheese State University online educational program). The group also included Cheese Monger Invitational competitors. We’ll talk more about the Cheese State University program and about some of the seven producers visited on the trip in future posts. As a retailer myself, and a self-taught cheese scholar, I was excited to spend such quality time with other knowledgeable, and knowledge-eager cheese pros, some of whom were not yet in kindergarten before Uplands produced its first batch.

Orphee Paillotin and Paula Heimerl of Alpinage

As I started writing this piece, we were about an hour away from a good-bye Raclette dinner. Earlier that day, we met with Orphee Paillotin of Alpinage Artisan Cheese and learned about how a young French IT specialist working in Wisconsin might become cheese entrepreneur. His company’s raclette was on the grill that night. Read more about Paillotin and Alpinage.

One of the most unique stops on the tour, and one which will stay with me forever, took place on the third night in a town called Paoli (pop. 159) on the Sweet River. We had a wonderful celebrity chef-presented dinner in the restaurant of the Seven Acre Dairy Inn. The early 20th century building has housed several dairy producing businesses. I got a tour of the nano-sized butter and ice cream facility now inside the café (led by Anna Landmark herself who makes artisan butter there), and later I enjoyed a pit fire with about a dozen tour participants. For that, we were on the opposite bank, on the grounds of a re-purposed 19th century mill (now in part bed-and-breakfast), which still has a mill run that trickles into the little river. Sweet indeed!

I’ve been involved with (and writing about) artisan cheese for more nearly 25 years, but I had only visited a couple of these significant places. If you love cheese, (and we know you do) seek these experiences. Many artisan cheese facilities coast to coast allow visitors, and sell retail-sized packages of their products right on site. Widmer’s Cheese in Theresa is a must-stop, in part because visitors (famously) enter from a neighborhood sidewalk, take two steps down through a postage-stamp cheese shop, and enter the warmth of the working make room. Fourth-generation owner Joey Widmer told us about the history, the Cheddars and the brick.

Of course, Wisconsin has a wealth of these gems, where you may have a spiritual epiphany, and a real frozen-custard experience on the same day.