by Austin Coe Butler
After an almost two year hiatus dominated by pandemic uncertainty, this April the buyers returned to Uplands Cheese in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, to do batch selection of Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Each year, France 44 selects and purchases batches, or a days worth of production, of Pleasant Ridge to serve to our customers. Pleasant Ridge Reserve is a special cheese to us. In addition to being a “Day One,” meaning it’s been in the case since the cheese shop opened, the long relationship we’ve fostered with Andy Hatch and the crew at Uplands Cheese and seeing how Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Rush Creek Reserve have changed over the years have been among the greatest rewards of this business.
For a dairy that produces a cheese as celebrated as Pleasant Ridge Reserve–the most awarded cheese in the United States–Uplands Cheese is remarkably humble and low-key. There are no billboards soliciting the creamery and not even an entrance sign at the country road you turn onto, just a long gravel road that crests the gently sloping hill Uplands sits on. To your right you can see the fields taking on the first, fresh green of spring as murmurations of starlings coalesce and shift in clouds above the resting cows. Cows that spend most of their time resting and laying down are an auspicious sign for any dairy farmer, as it means they are lactating, and lactation means milk.
When the buyers arrived at the dairy, Andy welcomed us at the threshold to the reception room. Andy, like Uplands Cheese, is a remarkably humble, humorous, kind, and curious person who has retained his humility throughout the great success of his cheese (and a stint in a Super Bowl LIII commercial for Wisconsin Cheese). His avuncular personality has made him a great friend and mentor to many other fantastic Midwest cheesemakers like Veronica Pedraza of Blakesville Creamery and the Annas of Landmark Creamery. We had to swap our shoes out for sanitized Crocs, galoshes, and gumboots before we could enter. Maintaining the beneficial microbiology of a creamery is paramount, and before entering, it’s imperative that you become a blank slate, so after a cup of coffee and catching up with Andy in the reception room, we scrubbed our hands and put on lab coats and hair nets. As we entered the creamery, we trudged through an anti-septic foam that’s sprayed on the floor to further sanitize the shoes. A renegade microbe can easily wreak havoc on the delicately calibrated microbiology of a creamery.
What immediately strikes you upon entering a creamery where cheese is aged is the smell of ammonia. Ammonia is a natural byproduct of aging cheese from proteolysis, the process by which proteins in the cheese breakdown. Your eyes sting and tear. Your nose runs and a hot, burning sensation catches you in the back of the throat. None of this is dangerous, and once you acclimate, it’s easier to ignore. As Andy showed us the different aging rooms where wheels of Pleasant Ridge were being turned and wiped with a brine, the smells by turn mellowed and sweetened before intensifying.
The creamery room where Pleasant Ridge and Rush Creek Reserve are made is quite small. With our group of four and Andy as tour guide, we were constantly cycling and shuffling around between the forms and tanks. When Pleasant Ridge production is up, usually only two people can work in the room simultaneously. There are three aging rooms, each packed with racks of Pleasant Ridge. The wooden slats the cheese ages on are stained with the rich tannins of spruce bark from Rush Creek Reserves. Within each of these wooden boards lives a thriving, beneficial microbial community that contribute to Pleasant Ridge’s flavor. After the creamery tour, it was time to sample the batches for selection.
Andy presented us with eight batches of Pleasant Ridge ranging from May to July of last year. Having worked with us for over a decade now, Andy knows the shop’s taste—a fact made plain when the first two wheels we tried were from the batches we selected. Andy cored each wheel, and we each tried a piece, noting its aroma, texture, and flavor. The first batch had a younger, fudgy texture and complex tropical fruit flavors, with hoppy citrus notes. The second batch was firmer in texture and beefier in flavor like a roast with caramelized root vegetables. After sampling each wheel, we narrowed it down to three and tried them again. The decision was unanimous: July 12th and 17th, 2021. We went into the aging room and signed the tags.
With the business out of the way, it was time for pleasure. Andy let us sample some of the oddities aging in the creamery as well—a few wheels sheep's milk cheese, some goudas, some especially large wheels of Pleasant Ridge. We sampled one batch of Pleasant Ridge that is bound for another shop in the Midwest that tasted uncannily like prosciutto. Afterwards, Andy gave us some roadies and we walked through the fields with the cows, paying a visit to the calves that had just been born. We talked of the many exciting happenings at Uplands—new toys for the creamery like a cheese turning robot, discussions of a larger format wheel of Pleasant Ridge, a new field for pasturage, the potential of a retail space, and a future aging facility. We stopped by his house, from which he still walks to work each day, and then we drove to Spring Green for dinner at Homecoming, an old schoolhouse that has been renovated into a restaurant that focuses on Midwestern ingredients. The Midwest is brimming with places like Homecoming that signal great opportunity for rural, small town communities and a renewed—or some might say continued—interest in good, slow food. The night ended with a walk to the aptly named Jeffrey’s House of Foolishness for Wisconsin old fashions and two dollar bottles of Schlitz. In the morning, Andy recommended breakfast sandwiches at the new Kwik Trip in town for the ailing buyers.
Batch selection is an integral part of what we do and what we believe in at France 44. When you buy cheese from our shop, you know that your money supports not just our family-owned business, but the livelihoods of all the people and animals who milk, make, and truck the cheese to us. You are preserving traditions and communities. You are supporting families. This memorial day, as you share your time with your family, share a piece of Pleasant Ridge with them and let them know all the love and labor that goes into it from maker to monger.
