Wine Spectator – September 30, 2019

SEPT. 30, 2019 • WINE SPECTATOR 49

W

elcome to Wisconsin, where, quite simply, it’s all

about cheese.

Those requiring proof need merely pull over

at just about any country convenience store,

where, alongside the usual snacks, they’ll find some of the state’s

finest artisan cheeses for sale. Great cheese at a gas station? As the

locals say, “You bet.”

America’s Dairyland has long been the No. 1 cheese-producing

state. It’s responsible for a quarter of all U.S. cheeses and close

to half in the elite specialty category, where it wins by far the

most awards.

Wisconsin’s original Cheeseheads, in the early 19th century,

were pioneers from the Northeast. Being mostly of English descent,

they brought Cheddar. Over the next 150 years, they were followed

by waves of Irish, Italians, Germans, Polish, Scandinavians and

Swiss—a melting pot of farmers and cheese lovers.

Discovering Dairyland

WISCONSIN

WISCONSIN PRODUCES MORE CHEESE THAN ANY OTHER STATE,

OFFERING TRAVELERS A PANOPLY OF DELICIOUS DESTINATIONS

“Our cheesemakers are knit into the landscape and community

like a Maine lobsterman or a Florida Key-lime farmer,” says Kris-

tine Hansen, author of Wisconsin Cheese Cookbook (Globe Pequot

Press, 2019), a useful volume featuring profiles of the state’s key

players. “They do everything from milking cows on their farms to

greeting customers in their stores.”

The challenge for cheese-seeking travelers to Wisconsin is not

so much finding enough of the good stuff, but rather wrapping

their heads around an embarrassment of riches. The distances

between attractions—cheese and otherwise—can also present a

hurdle. Fortunately, some of the state’s best artisan and farmstead

cheesemakers can be found amid lovely scenery of undulating

hills and pristine farms within an hour’s drive of the capital, Mad-

ison. A sizeable number of them have shops, cafés and viewing

windows into their creameries.

Widmer’s in Theresa, a sleepy farming town that’s a minor detour

BY DAVID GIBBONS PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID NEVALA

Father-and-son team Joey and Joe Widmer of Widmer’s