Throughout the course of our weekly pairing series, we’ve studied many different styles of cheese. From pillowy-soft bloomy rind cheeses, to meaty, funky washed rinds, to crystalline, crunchy, cave-aged goudas, and for heaven’s sake, don’t forget the blues; we’ve covered many delicious options. But it’s not always simply the style or type of cheese that makes one unique or sets them apart. In fact, many cheesemakers would argue that successfully aging cheese is more challenging than the actual make of the cheese itself. A talented affineur can take a cheese to a whole new level. For the second week in a row, we revisit a cheese we paired earlier in our pairing series, returning to the caves of Marcel Petite at Fort Saint Antoine, high in the Jura mountains of eastern France, to showcase an extra-special, aged Comté named “Sagesse.” Each year, just before the Holidays, we receive a small shipment of this amazing cheese chosen specifically for its ability to age, like a fine wine. These wheels of Comté are hand-selected by Marcel Petite’s Master Affineur, Claude Querry, for their ability to peak in taste, texture, and aroma at right around 2 years old. Aged at least one year longer than the wheels of Marcel Petite Comté you’ll normally find in our case, the Sagesse is dynamic, and screaming for something yummy to drink along side it. Where its younger sibling tastes of fresh cream and butter, combined with the slightest hint of raw almond and green grass, the older Sagesse delivers a boozy punch of toasted brioche and burnt sugars, kissed with a proper hint of farm. We’ve chosen the 2016 Pinot Noir from Robert Sinskey Vineyards in Napa Valley, California for our wine pairing. Light enough to stand on its own, but with a spine strong enough to hang with a 2 year old cheese, this Pinot is a fantastic partner. Flavors of bright red fruit and cinnamon mingle with aromas of native prairie flowers and oak to successfully make this wine our first choice. The combination of meticulous attention to detail and perfect weather has blessed this vintage with an unfair advantage that fully supports a cheese like the Sagesse, and we’re excited. Supplies are limited, so swing by early and get it while you can!
Stilton
by Joe Kastner
“The King of Cheeses.” I see this phrase thrown around all the time in regards to many different types of cheese. It’s often associated with Parmigiano-Reggiano, Brie de Meaux, Roquefort, or even Farmstead Cheddar. To me though, the “King of Cheeses” (ignoring the patriarchal and antiquated connotations of that phrase) is absolutely Colston Basset Stilton. This is not the Stilton you see at the holidays with dried fruit or other abnormalities shoved inside, this is the top-of-the-line, crumbly, melty, delicious blue cheese from our friends across the pond (that’s England).
Nestled in South-Central UK, just east of Nottingham, the Colston Bassett Dairy operation is surrounded by sprawling farmland where they get the milk for their amazing blue cheeses. The milk is curdled, molded, and salted all by hand by the small team of hard-working cheesemakers. They also mix in the Penicillium Roqueforti at this point, the beautiful little mold that creates that blue growth we all love so much. Once the wheels are formed and placed on shelves to age, the affineurs (cheese-agers) will go around and poke formed cheeses with long needles. This brings oxygen into the inside of the cheese, allowing the mold to breathe and grow, giving the Stilton it’s lovely veining throughout.
I could eat this cheese all darn day long. Sprinkle a bit on your bacon-and-eggs breakfast sandwich for a little kick, crumble some onto a steak for dinner, eat it with dark chocolate for dessert. This “King of Cheeses” is always a winner and an absolute must for any holiday-season cheese board. Enjoy some today!
The Pairing: Brabander Reserve
This is a crazy time of year to be working in our shops. Business has slowed a bit since the school year began, and we’re finally able to catch our breathes after a busy summer season, but the Holidays are just around the corner, and deliveries to our back door are becoming more frequent and more massive. There is no better time of year to do the work that we do; it’s the time when our customers will depend on us the most, and it feels good to be in a position to deliver. It’s also the time of year that certain exclusive, seasonal cheeses become available to us, and our cheesemongers can’t wait to share them with you. The L’Amuse Brabander Reserve, the elder sibling of Brabander, a goat milk gouda from southern Holland we paired earlier in this series, is one of these special cheeses. And it has just arrived! While Brabander is young, milky and tastes of sweet cream, the Reserve is aged a full year longer, and is reminiscent of caramelized custard and cocoa. Over this extra period of aging, the cheese’s paste becomes a bit more crunchy, yet still melts easily on the tongue, and flavors develop in waves. For this week’s wine selection, we’ve chosen a highly celebrated Reserve Rioja from Remelluri Winery in the Basque region of northern Spain, a little over an hour drive from Bilbao, and the Bay of Biscay. Known as the first single estate Rioja vineyard in Spain, Remelluri has gained a reputation for producing fantastic Riojas that showcase distinct terroir and improve with age. With stern tannins and notes of deep red fruit, leather, and a hint of smoke, this wine is bold and beautiful and not only complements the cheese’s character, but unearths new layers of flavor within. Swing by the shop this weekend, and make time for a special occasion.
Ask A Butcher: Spatchcocked Chicken
What is a spatchcocked chicken and why do people love them?
A spatchcocked chicken, sometimes called a butterflied chicken, is a whole chicken from which you remove two bones: the spine and the keel bone. Doing so allows the bird to lay flat for cooking, both decreasing the time it takes to cook and increasing the ways to cook it.
Spatchcocking a chicken dramatically decreases the cooking time, regardless of the method. The time it takes to roast a whole chicken in the oven is cut in half, from around an hour and a half to a measly 45 minutes. Because they can lay evenly on a flat surface, spatchcocked chickens are also perfect for grilling. This also exposes more skin to the heat, rendering even more of it crispy and delicious. If you want your chicken to be fall-off the bone tender, you can even grab your biggest, deepest pan and braise the chicken on the stove or in the oven. That is, after searing the skin, of course.
Breaking down a cooked spatchcocked chicken is incredibly easy. Because many of the connecting bones are now gone, you can simply pull at the base of the thighs to separate the thighs and breasts. The breasts should require nothing more than a cut between them, providing easy portioning for a full meal.
Spatchcocking a chicken at home is surprisingly simple, too. To remove the spine, you stand the chicken on its head, running a sharp knife down both sides of the spine, all the way to the neck. If you don't feel comfortable using a knife, a pair of kitchen scissors works as well. Once you have the whole spine removed, you flip the chicken over and press down on the back of both the chicken breasts. This should expose the keel bone, located between the two breasts. It's very easy to remove with your hands, and with that, the chicken will lay flat on a surface. If you want to see an example, or have any more questions, please ask us at the meat counter! We love your questions, and were always happy to spatchcock the chicken for you, too!
The Pairing: Rush Creek Reserve
by Sophia Stern
The air is cold, the days are shorter, the trees are full of beautifully colored leaves, and Rush Creek Reserve has arrived at the France 44 cheese counter. Beloved and sure to sell out, Rush Creek is the holiday cheese that should be on all of our lists. We’ve paired our most anticipated cheese of the year with a beautiful Franciacorta from Lombardy, a perfect bubbly for the holiday season.
There is no better cheese than Rush Creek to launch the first of our Holiday Pairings for 2021. A special project by the makers of Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Uplands Cheese’s Rush Creek is only available from late October until the end of the year. The annual creation of Rush Creek marks the beginning of fall, as the cheese is made just as the cows switch from grazing on summer pasture to cured hay, resulting in richer, fattier milk. Inspired by the traditions of Vacherin Mont D'Or, Rush Creek is a creamy, decadent cheese wrapped in spruce bark. The bark imparts a gentle woody flavor into the cheese, cutting through the other notes of butter, hay, and cream. Rush Creek Reserve is a thing of beauty and unlike most other cheeses you’ll find in our case.
Uplands Cheese recommend you enjoy Rush Creek with sparkling wine, and who are we to argue. This year, we’ve chosen Ca del Bosco Franciacorta 'Cuvee Prestige' for its gentle, clean sparkle and notes of strawberry and grass. Ca’ del Bosco sits at the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy and is considered the gold standard. Made with the traditional Champagne method, this wine has fine and creamy bubbles as opposed to the big and frothy bubbles one might find in a Prosecco. While mostly Chardonnay, the Cuvee Prestige is balanced with Pinot Bianco and Pinot Nero and also boasts deeper, richer flavor and texture than other Franciacortas due to its 25 month long contact with the lees. Considered the “Champagne of Italy”, this stunning, highly respected Franciacorta is a dynamic crowd pleasing bubbly. It emphasises the sweet grass notes of Rush Creek and break through the richness without overpowering the nuances of this special cheese.
We always say it, but this time we are serious: allow Rush Creek to come to room temperature before enjoying. Let it sit on your counter for six hours and slice the top off before eating with a spoon. At just under a pound, Rush Creek should be enjoyed in one sitting and with company. Pick up the first of the Holiday Pairings and invite over a few friends, or make Rush Creek the center of your party table while you serve the best of the best Franciacorta. We’ll be running this pairing until the end of the year, so from fall nights at home to the Thanksgiving table, we have you covered.
To read more about Rush Creek Reserve, check out our blog post here.
The Pairing: Manchego
By Sophia Stern
This weeks pairing highlights a staple of our cheese case, Pasamontes 3-month Manchego. Sheep's milk tends to pair well with a bold red or standout white, but this manchego is subtler than other sheep milk cheeses. At only three months, the texture is just starting to firm up. Bolder wines wash away the melt-in-your-mouth cheese before the tartness and notes of herbs and grass come through. And yet, the Manchego needs a wine strong enough to elevate the rich, buttery milk which comes from the Manchega sheep native to Castilla La Mancha.
Enter Itxas Harri Roxa Rosé from the village of Monteagudo in the northern Basque region of Navarra. Itxas Harri wines belong to Ignacio Ameztoi and Iñaki Guelbenzu who are longtime friends and winemaking partners. Navarra is known as the garden of Spain, famous for its high quality artichokes and other produce. Roxa, a new wine project for Itxas Harri, has the refreshing, lower alcohol qualities usually associated with costal wines. It drinks saline and mineral. Although the vineyard is not on the coast, the Garnacha vines are planted on an ancient seabed, leading to the oceanic qualities in the fruit. The Garnacha grape is popular throughout Spain, as it tends to thrive in dry, hot climates. However, this wine only has two hours of skin contact with the Garnacha grapes, making it pale and gentle.
There are long standing rules for wine pairings, white with seafood, red with steak, what grows together goes together and so on. Recent pairing trends have pushed against these rules, rebelling against the ways they blur the nuances of agriculture and the individuality of their products. However, sometimes we circle back to these rules and find that what grows near each other sometimes does go together, and these Spanish products play together wonderfully. Roxa draws out the savory, green flavors of the Pasamontes Manchego. The wine allows the easy-going cheese to show its complexity while brightening up the rich and buttery notes we go back for over and over again.
To see more about the Pasamontes Manchego, check out our blog post here.
Rush Creek Reserve
by Austin Coe Butler
Like Uplands Cheese’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Rush Creek Reserve is another old world cheese made in an American context. Having spent a season in the Jura making Vacherin Mont d’Or, Rush Creek Reserve is cheesemaker Andy Hatch’s tribute to that classic cheese. Like Mont d’Or, Rush Creek Reserve is made at the precise moment in the autumn when the cows transition from diverse, fresh pasturage to cured hay and the milk becomes richer and higher in fat. This autumn, hay-fed milk lends itself to an indulgent, rich texture like custard or pudding.
Once the autumn milk is set with rennet, the curd is cut by hand and then ladled gently into small forms (the autumn’s milk, while richer in fat, is less in volume than the summer’s milk). The forms are then flipped and allowed to drain overnight before being brined in the morning and wrapped in a girdle of boiled spruce bark cambium. This bark not only gives the cheese its structure, but imparts a woodsy flavor that compliments the cured meat flavors found in this cheese. The cheeses are left to ripen in the storeroom and, after the sixty day maturation minimum placed on unpasteurized cheeses in the United States, the cheeses are sent out just in time for the holiday season.
There is festive air about this cheese beyond its arrival during the holidays, though. As a soft, seasonal cheese, it’s only available from late October to January, and the anticipation that builds among staff and customers to opening a Rush Creek is like opening a present. Andy’s wife, Caitlin, also paints a beautiful watercolor poster that accompanies each year’s batch. This fanfare and celebration is a fitting end to the grueling cheesemaking season when Andy and his staff are often working seventeen hours a day making not only Rush Creek Reserve but the last batches of Pleasant Ridge as well. The cows go dry, the days grow short, and the meditative practice of washing and tending to the wheels of Pleasant Ridge for the next season begins. By the cheese’s nature, it is meant to be shared. Once opened, it should be consumed, and its size is a bit too large and rich for someone to solo, though a few of the cheesemonger’s at France 44 try to each year.
Like all cheese, Rush Creek Reserve is best at room temperature. Let it temp up over the course of five or six hours, or bring it up in a warm oven by removing the paper and wrapping the cheese in foil or placing it in a ceramic crock. (Uplands Cheese offers an oven crock made by Wilson Creek Pottery explicitly for this purpose.) Once the cheese is up to temp, slice the top rind off and serve it with a spoon. While this cheese is made with delicacy, there’s no need to be precious with it; it’s excellent dolloped on roasted meat and vegetables, and each winter Andy freezes a few Rush Creeks and takes them to the local pub where they deep fry them.
Customers often talk about how this is the perfect cheese for the holidays when friends and family are around, and we couldn’t agree more. With small gatherings becoming more viable for people and this holiday season likely to be the first time many of us have celebrated our respective holidays or seen their family members in a long time, this gorgeous cheese is the perfect holiday centerpiece to serve and enjoy with your loved ones.
Please note that this cheese is so highly anticipated that you won’t be able to take one straight from our case just yet! If you’d like one as soon as possible, you can preorder them online to ensure pick up staring October 29th.
(Rush Creek Reserve 2021 print painted by Caitlin Hatch)
The Pairing: Blakesville Lake Effect
As you can imagine, opening a farmstead dairy and creamery is hard. From establishing abundant pastures, and a herd of healthy animals capable of providing high quality milk, to design and construction of an efficient facility for production and proper aging, to hiring good workers who can learn to produce, market, and ship your product; each of these tasks pose massive challenges, are wholly reliant upon one another, and the formula is complicated. For this week’s pairing, we’re highlighting a creamery that has not only recently opened, but did so during the pandemic. Nestled on 400 acres of farmland, and perched above the western shores of Lake Michigan, in the town of Port Washington, WI, Blakesville Creamery is beating all the odds. It was 2012 when the owner purchased the farm and began the process of transitioning the farm from a traditional cow dairy to one that cared for goats. The farm’s primary goal was to produce quality goat milk using sustainable farming practices, while concurrently, building a business that listened to the environmental and social needs of its surrounding community. Following 7+ years spent establishing the goat dairy, the creamery was slated to begin production in April of 2020. Due to the emergence of the pandemic, plans got delayed, and delayed some more. And markets evaporated overnight. But the vision on the farm was still clear, and the team at Blakesville Creamery forged ahead with their big dreams. Under the guidance of head cheesemaker, Veronica Pedraza, they begin listening, learning, and adapting to what was happening around them, and the creamery began making cheese. We’ve been lucky enough to stock Blakesville’s cheeses in our cases from the very beginning, and we’ve been delighted with them. The cheese we celebrate this week is Blakesville Creamery’s Lake Effect. A soft ripened goats milk cheese, Lake Effect delivers the perfect combination of earthy aroma and sweet and salty paste, along with ideal ratios of cream line and bloomy rind chew. Our chosen wine pairing for this cheese is, Le Havre de Paix, from the Côtes de Gascogne wine district of southwestern France, just north of the Pyrenees mountains. With vibrant notes of green apple and honeycomb, along with a faint minerality, this white blend is a wonderful partner for the Lake Effect, as the wine’s buttery structure holds its own against the cheese’s rich and creamy finish.
Blakesville Creamery
By Joe Kastner- Minneapolis Monger
I love Wisconsin cheese. Maybe I’m biased because I grew up there, but I think my home state has some of the best cheeses out there. When most people think of a classic Wisconsin cheese, they think of a big sharp Cheddar, or some fresh squeaky curds, or even Butterkäse or Brick or other dairy co-op favorites, but not so much soft-rinded goat’s cheeses. But that’s just what we’re focusing on this week, some amazing farmstead goat’s cheeses made in classic French styles right off the western shore of Lake Michigan.
Blakesville Creamery is a great example of passionate people bringing an idea to life in the face of challenging odds. In 2012, the land where the creamery currently sits- just north of Port Washington, WI, a suburb of Milwaukee- was a dairy farm, but with 300 cows. The farmer was looking to sell and retire, but didn’t want to see his land bought by a corporation and turned into condos or a shopping center. He approached his neighbor, Lynde Uihlein, with an offer to buy his farm and conglomerate it with her own. Lynde, who was involved with land preservation and restoration in the area, accepted the offer and took over the dairy, with the goal of switching the entire herd to goats and then making cheese with their milk. At the time this must have seemed like a massively daunting task, but SPOILER ALERT, she made it work!
After 8 years of selling cows to buy goats, changing the farm to fit the new herd, and building cheese-making facilities, Lynde and her team were finally ready to “curd” it up. She brought on veteran cheesemaker Veronica Pedraza to develop the recipes and oversee the production. Then in early 2020, just as the cheeses were getting ready to roll out, COVID happened. Not only did this push back the opening of the creamery due to licensing issues, it also took away a large portion of planned sales to restaurants and other vendors that were struggling at the time. Despite these hurdles, Blakesville released their first cheeses in July 2020 and they’ve been some of our more popular soft cheeses at the shop. If this teaches you anything about cheese people, it’s that we’re willing to wait for a good thing.
At France 44, we sell most of the selections that Blakesville has developed in their short time. Four of them are soft-ripened, smaller format options in easy-to-manage 5 oz. packages, perfect for Lake Effect is the cheese that we’ve carried most frequently. It’s a bloomy-rind cheese that’s ripened with the same molds you’ll find on most Camemberts, giving it that classic mushroomy, earthy flavor. The Lake Breeze, on the other hand, is ripened with Geotrichum cultures and B linens, commonly found on washed-rind cheeses. Though the Breeze isn’t washed itself, it has a bit of the funk associated with those types of cheese. Afterglow, my personal favorite of the bunch, is actually a washed-rind style, bathed in New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red, an ale made from cherries from Door County. Cheese washed in beer with Door County cherries. If that just doesn’t scream Wisconsin, I don’t know what does.
We also carry their ash-lined creation, Linedeline. Layering cheese with vegetable ash is an old practice used to protect the milk from bugs between milking sessions, particularly with goats because their yield is less. But it also just looks really cool on a cheeseboard. This cheese is nice and firm and sliceable while young, but as it ages it just becomes creamy and spreadable and even more decadent. The hard cheese option from Blakesville is called St. Germain, a very firm tomme-style with a wild rind with lots of cool growth. This cheese smells woodsy and piney, and has a lingering herbaceousness that keeps me snacking on it.
Farmstead cheeses like these are awesome to see, especially such newer, up-and-coming operations like Blakesville. The art and science of creating cheese with milk from your own herd of animals is a beautifully sustainable way to honor the land that we call our home, while providing a crucial service to your community and neighbors like us. By buying this cheese, you’re helping support small, sustainable farming and cheese-making, while also enjoying some of the best that Wisconsin has to offer! Cheers!
The Pairing: The King of Cheese
This week’s cheese selection is produced at a small dairy in the village of Benedello di Pavullo, high in the Apennine mountains, just southwest of Modena, Italy. There, at Caseificio Sociale San Pietro, some 2,500 ft above sea level, head cheesemaker, Massimo Libra, produces 8 wheels of raw cow’s milk cheese a day, 365 days a year. The cheese is Parmigiano Reggiano. Producing this cheese at such high elevation has earned Mossimo’s wheels the designation of, Produtto di Montagna, a distinction awarded by the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium to promote exceptional cheeses with unique qualities. Mountain pastures provide diverse ground cover and forage, which lend their qualities to the milk. Of over 350 producers of Parmigiano Reggiano throughout Italy, only 30 have received this mountain designation. Once produced, according to established rules of the Consortium, Mossimo’s cheeses must age at the dairy for no less than 12 months before they can travel to market. The wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano we sell in our shops have been aged for much longer, at the hands of Giorgio Cravero, a 6th generation affineur from the town of Bra, in Piedmont, about 200 miles west of the dairy. Giorgio maintains roughly 5,000 wheels of carefully selected Parmigiano Reggiano in his caves at any one time, paying close attention to temperature and humidity as he seeks his proprietary standards of taste and texture. His cave maintains his desired conditions throughout most of the year, naturally, with windows open, and air conditioning only needed during the hottest summer months of June, July and August. Giorgio believes in a process of slow maturation, with minimal handling. Wheels are not washed, and are only turned every other week as they age on decades old pine boards. The result of this approach is a cheese with a more tender, sweet and fruity paste from rind to rind. After an additional 12 months of aging in Bra, Giorgio’s cheeses are graded by delegates of the Consortium, and shipped out to the U.S., and to our shops. Crumbly, yet buttery, with notes of pineapple and toasted pecans, Cravero recommends drinking Prosecco with his cheese. We found a match in the Flora Prosecco from Col di Luna Winery, located in the Treviso region of Italy, a little north of Venice. This crisp, bubbly white wine, with notes of alpine flowers and apples, mellows the cheese’s bite, bringing sweetness top of mind. Mouthfeel is rich and balanced in flavor and texture, and bubbles top things off. Cin! Cin!