Cheese of the Week - Sartori SarVecchio Parmesan Reserve Cheese

On my way to Friday morning I was listening to the Joy Cardin show on WPR. The guest was Jeanne Carpenter of Wisconsin Cheese Originals, an organization dedicated to learning about and promoting Wisconsin Artisan Cheese. She also writes the Cheese Underground blog and recently posted the 25 best Wisconsin cheeses. I will not discuss my obsession with cheese vs cheeses vs types of cheese here, but the topic will be addressed soon.

I decided that this may be a great opportunity to learn a little bit more about one of the finer points of living in Wisconsin.  My idea is to try one of the types of cheese on the Cheese Underground list each week and see which ones we like best.



I stopped at one of my favorite cheese shops, the Cheese Board, in Minocqua with the Underground list. The ladies reviewed my list and pointed me in the direction of a parmesan style cheese from the Sartori  family called SarVecchio Parmesan.


This cheese has won a ton of awards.

2011 U.S. CHAMPIONSHIP CHEESE CONTEST

GRAND CHAMPION RUNNER UP

2011 U.S. CHAMPIONSHIP CHEESE CONTEST

FIRST PLACE (BEST OF CLASS)

2010 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CHEESE CONTEST

FIRST PLACE (BEST OF CLASS)

2010 WORLD CHEESE AWARDS

SILVER MEDAL

2010 WORLD DAIRY EXPO

GRAND CHAMPION

Before we moved to the Northwoods Friday night was Pizza Night. We would often order out or go out for pizza. That doesn't work here. We quickly found out that Friday night is Fish Fry Night in Mercer - no other main dishes are available. We changed our Pizza Night to Thursday evening. Since we don't really celebrate the Fish Fry, Friday is available for Cheese Tasting Night.

Maddie Jo
watches the
preparation.

"Let's taste some
CHEESE!"

In addition to the Sartori SarVecchio I also picked up Sartori's Balsamic BellaVittano - a golden cheese soaked in balsamic vinegar. I brought my treasures home and the dogs were ready to help out as soon as they heard my plan.



The parmesan was light and crumbly. It was flavorful, but not as sharp as the parmesan blocks you buy in the grocery store. Very nice and not overpowering. The Balsamic BellaVittano was really good. It tasted rich with a little bite from the vinegar. Overall, two good choices.  I hesitate to rate the cheese quite yet, as this is the first on the list that we've tasted.

I can tell you that compared to my favorite Wisconsin cheese - Merkt's it did quite well.  I'm afraid I go through way too many plastic tubs of this cheese-food spread; I eat it with everything. Perhaps by educating my Wisconsin cheese palate I will break my Merkt's habit. Stay tuned for next week's cheese.