GREEN BAY (WTAQ-WLUK) — The United States has a new champion in cheese.
After two days of judging at Lambeau Field, the 2017 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest winner was announced Thursday night at the KI Convention Center.
After decades of entering the championship cheese contest, Antigo’s Sartori Compay won for its Reserve Cheese Black Pepper BellaVitano.
“Oh my god, this is insane,” said Mike Matucheski of Satori Company to FOX 11. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
48 judges picked 20 finalists out of a field of more than 2,303.
The cheeses came from 33 states, and as you might expect, Wisconsin led the way in both entries and spots in the top 20 with 14.
“Well if you get to the top 20, you really got to feel really good about it because it’s not easy to get to that position,” said Terry Lensmire to FOX 11, the product development manager for Agropur, which took first runner up for its one to two-year aged cheddar.
The judges use a 100-point system, deducting points for defects.
“The criteria or the elements we evaluate are appearance and makeup, then we’ll pull a sample, a plug usually using a cheese trier,” said Jim Mueller, a judge from Bellevue.
“We’ll flavor it and we multi-task. While we’re flavoring it, we’re also checking the body and texture, and then the final element that we evaluate is the color.”
The contest is held every other year.
