by Austin Coe Butler
In our weeks-long celebration of American Cheese Society Award Winners, there isn’t a cheese as near and dear to our hearts, and our customers’, as the next big winner: Uplands Cheese Company’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve. As the most awarded cheese in American, Pleasant Ridge Reserve added three more prestigious awards to its name:
Pleasant Ridge Reserve – 3rd Place – Best in Show
Pleasant Ridge Reserve – 1st Place – Washed Rind Cheeses made from cow’s milk
Pleasant Ridge Reserve – 2nd Place – Farmstead Category Aged 60 days or more less than 39% Moisture made from cow’s milk
Pleasant Ridge Reserve is a special cheese for us. It’s been in our case since the shop opened, and over the years our relationship with cheesemaker Andy Hatch and the team at Uplands has become one of our most cherished. Now, with over fifteen years of friendship, we hand-select the batches of Pleasant Ridge we sell during visits to the dairy. Last year, in an exciting development, we invited Andy to the Events space to invite customers to participate in batch selection as well. Put simply, Pleasant Ridge is great cheese made by great people doing great things for their cows, community, and environment. Whenever an inquisitive customer comes to the cheese counter unsure of where to start eating their way thoughtfully through the multifarious world of cheese, I hand them a wedge of Pleasant Ridge Reserve.
Fans of Uplands’ other cheese, Rush Creek Reserve, might wonder where it is on the list of ACS winners, and the answer is, it isn’t! For good reason. Rush Creek Reserve is a highly seasonal cheese, made during the autumn when the cows transition from fresh pasture to cured hay producing a milk that is less in volume but richer in fat. It arrives in October and is sold out by January, so you won’t ever see it judged by ACS in May, which, frankly, I find refreshing. In an increasingly institutionalized world where we use awards and accolades to justify our tastes, or worse, build our tastes from them, the personal pleasure of food remains a radical tool for conviviality. De gustibus non est disputandum. Pleasant Ridge Reserve doesn’t taste any better with each award it wins. It tastes great in spite of them.
As a beautiful melter and a great snaking cheese that can handle the summer heat, Pleasant Ridge Reserve is the perfect cheese to have a big wedge of this Labor Day weekend. And as an added level of intrigue, those of us who tried the day’s batch that was judged at ACS this year thought the two batches we selected alongside our customers were even better! Come visit the shop the weekend to grab and wedge and taste why it continues to remain America’s most awarded cheese!