Three Major Cheese Contests in Wisconsin
For the City-Times
In the span of a year, it’s no contest to say where the best cheeses in the U.S. will be.
They’ll be in Wisconsin, if only for a few days.
The American Cheese Society’s contest this week is one of three that will be in the state within a year. All are the major contests in the U.S.
The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association hosts the other two — the World Championship Cheese Contest in even-numbered years at Monona Terrace, the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest in Green Bay in odd-numbered years.
The contests differ in their approach.
“Our contest dates to the days of cheese grading, so it’s all technical,” said John Umhoefer, executive director of the WCMA. “We assume a cheese is perfect, then we look for defects. It’s kind of like a figure skating competition.”
ACS, on the other hand, is half technical and half aesthetic. The aesthetic judges aren’t scientists but come from the worlds of retail, distribution or media, said Nora Weiser, executive director of ACS. They start with a cheese’s base score and add points based on things they find intriguing, interesting or appealing.
“We look at appearance, but we look at it differently than a chef would,” Umhoefer said. “For us it’s a question of form and shape, for them it might be beauty. Yet it’s interesting how often there are similar winners because some cheeses are just that good.”
While there is no criteria for size of the company entered, the ACS contest tends to draw mostly smaller companies and the WCMA contests draw mostly larger companies.
But it’s been small companies that have done well at the WCMA contest in Green Bay in recent years, including Holland’s Family Cheese of Thorp in March. “What it means for these smaller operations to win an award can be life-changing,” Umhoefer said.
The next World Championship Cheese Contest is March 18-19 at Monona Terrace.