Happy cheesy new year! Our first cheese club shipment of 2023 features three cheeses that are particularly rooted in European cheesemaking traditions, but could only have been made in America. Read on to learn about this month's selections and sign up to have this month's club shipped straight to your door!
Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Uplands Cheese Company - Dodgeville, WI
One of the winningest cheeses in the history of the American Cheese Society, Pleasant Ridge Reserve has taken home a few blue ribbons: 2001, 2005, and 2010. Cheesemaker Andy Hatch crafts these Alpine-style wheels just 10 weeks out of the year, when the cows are out on pasture. The flavors locked within each wheel of Pleasant Ridge are the perfect expression of the terroir of the low grassy valleys of southwestern Wisconsin in summertime. Each rich and hearty wheel sports a stately coffee brown rind, and tastes of toasted nuts and caramel, like an aged gouda or cheddar.
Anabasque from Landmark Creamery - Belleville, WI
Landmark Creamery is jointly owned and operated by Anna Thomas Bates and Anna Landmark. This Basque style sheep’s milk tomme is therefore named for both of them! Stylistically, it belongs with the mostly-sheep-but-sometimes-mixed-milk tommes made by shepherds in the Pyrenees while up in the mountains during the summertime. This makes it a sister cheese to the transhumance tradition in the world of Gruyere. For centuries, shepherds have led flocks into the higher reaches of the mountains for beautiful mountain pasturage. The cheeses made in the mountains need to be durable for the journey back down, either for storage or to market. Anabasque pays homage to that tradition. It is rich, sheepy, and savory.
Vault 5 Cheddar from Jasper Hill Farm - Greensboro, VT
Cabot Creamery is one of the oldest family farm owned cooperatives in New England. The Cellars at Jasper Hill Farm is dedicated to supporting the working landscape of Vermont’s dairy farms. The Cellars is comprised of 7 cheese aging vaults—each suited to a different style of cheese and ripening process. Jasper Hill’s cheese team works with Cabot graders to hand select vats of young cheese that show promise for aging, and the blocks of cheese are shipped to the Cellars to age in Vault 5. Upon receipt the blocks are brushed and coated with lard in order to seal the cheese and cultivate a living natural rind. The cheeses are released for sale when they achieve a balance of flavor that is rich, brothy, caramelly and complex.
Sign up for our cheese of the month club today!
