Willi, a Wisconsin Collaboration

August 16, 2013

This limited production Alpine-style cheese was a collaboration between four Wisconsin cheesemakers, Bob Wills (Cedar Grove Cheese Inc.), Willi Lehner (Bleu Mont Dairy), Bill Anderson (Crème de la Coulee Artisan Cheese) and Chris Roelli (Roelli Cheese Co. Inc.). As you can see, it garnered a ribbon at the American Cheese Society awards in 2013, at […]

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Scenes from Wisconsin’s Dairyland

August 15, 2013

We covered a lot of cheeses in last week’s Blue Ribbon series, but there’s so much more from our time at ACS to share. Up first, a tour of Wisconsin dairy farms — four of them, to be precise. We arrived in Madison early to attend the welcome party hosted by Andy Hatch and the […]

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Blue Ribbon Bloomies from Green Dirt Farm, Ancient Heritage Dairy, MouCo Cheese and Vermont Creamery

August 9, 2013

Our Blue Ribbon Week officially concludes today with a look at some top-in-their-class bloomy rinds. Remember to leave a comment below, or on any or all of this week’s posts, for a chance to win that Blue Ribbon Beauties gift box (FREE CHEESE!) from Murray’s. Some of the most talked about cheeses at Thursday evening’s […]

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Boonter’s Blue, Pennyroyal Farm, and Midnight Blue, Avalanche Cheese Company {Blue Ribbon Week}

August 8, 2013

Now that we’ve gone through the Best of Show cheeses, our focus turns to other blue-ribbon winners from last week’s American Cheese Society awards. Today: blue-ribbon blues! The ACS competition includes seven categories of blue cheese, and Boonter’s Blue, a raw mixed-milk cheese from California’s Pennyroyal Farm, topped the long-winded “blue-veined with a rind or […]

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Bandaged Cheddar, Big Sky Grana and Alpine Renegade, Bleu Mont Dairy {Blue Ribbon Week}

August 7, 2013

Though the Cellars at Jasper Hill won the biggest prize of the night last week at the American Cheese Society awards ceremony, it was Willi Lehner of Wisconsin’s Bleu Mont Dairy who took home the most Best of Show ribbons. For the first time, a cheesemaker tied himself! Lehner’s Bandaged Cheddar and Big Sky Grana, […]

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Bear Hill, Grafton Village Cheese {Blue Ribbon Week}

August 6, 2013

As you may have noticed, Vermont took both first and second honors at the American Cheese Society awards ceremony. And no one was more stoked about that fact than Grafton Village cheesemaker Dane Huebner, a Wisconsin native turned Vermonter. Huebner and Grafton Village took 2nd place, Best in Show, for Bear Hill (first in its […]

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Winnimere, Cellars at Jasper Hill {Blue Ribbon Week}

August 5, 2013

Over the past five years, as Jill and I have hunted, tasted and studied hundreds of cheeses, we’ve also had the privilege of meeting and becoming friends with a number of their makers. While we always give an honest assessment of their cheeses here on the blog, it does make it just a little hard […]

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American Cheese Society BEST IN SHOW: Cellars at Jasper Hill, Grafton Village Cheese, Bleu Mont Dairy

August 3, 2013

Congratulations to the Best in Show winners at ACS 2013! 3rd Place, a first-ever tie between two cheeses from the same cheesemaker: Bandaged Cheddar and Big Sky Grana from Willi Lehner, Bleu Mont Dairy, Wisconsin! 2nd Place: Bear Hill, Dane Huebner, Grafton Village Cheese, Vermont! and the very best in show, and a long time […]

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Hello Wisconsin: Sound Bites from CheeseCon

August 1, 2013

We’re blogging live from America’s dairy land — Madison, Wisconsin, home of the 30th Annual American Cheese Society Conference & Competition. We wish we could have brought you all along with us, but for the next best thing, follow us…. @curdwise on Twitter @curdwise on Instagram Cheese and Champagne on Facebook & follow the #cheesesociety13 […]

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Birthday Goats: Quillisascut Ash Tomme, Washington, and Rivers Edge Siltcoos, Oregon

July 29, 2013

Today is my sister Amy’s birthday, and though I already sent her a real present (a behind-the-scenes book about “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”), I thought she might appreciate a virtual gift, too. Amy has a boatload of food sensitivities (i.e., gluten, cow’s milk, corn), but she can plow through a wheel of goat cheese […]

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