Clouds on your tongue: The Petit Nuages.
It’s been just three years since Anna Landmark began formal training as a cheesemaker and two years since she joined forces with Anna Thomas Bates to launch Landmark Creamery. But the two have already made their mark on one of the state’s most competitive markets, especially with their sheep’s milk specialty cheeses.
Landmark Creamery’s small-batch cheeses are sold on both coasts and have pride of place on the menus of several Wisconsin restaurants, including Osteria Papavero and Oliver’s Public House in Madison.
Landmark and Bates, who both live in Albany, Wis., crossed paths several years ago at an event for the Green County Area Women in Sustainable Agriculture. They quickly discovered their mutual interests went deeper than a passion for locally produced food. Landmark is the cheesemaker; Bates handles marketing.
They source their sheep’s milk from a small, family-owned farm near Rewey, while the cow’s milk for their Tallgrass and Tallgrass Reserve cheeses comes from a dairy co-op in the Madison area. The cheeses are made at the Cedar Grove plant in Plain. From there, they go to Bear Valley Affinage north of Lone Rock, where owner Jenifer Brozak oversees the aging process. Landmark and Bates stop by periodically to see how the batches are coming along.
Landmark says that “a lot of documentation and tasting” during the aging process is required to nail down exactly what steps result in a batch that turns out especially well and which produce experiments not worth repeating.
Landmark sells four primary cheeses: the Tallgrass, a creamy, buttery cheese with a rind rubbed with smoked paprika and olive oil; Tallgrass Reserve, aged for a minimum of six months with a natural, moldy rind; the Basque-influenced Anabasque, a firm and salty sheep’s milk cheese that’s cave-aged for three months; and individually packaged, one-ounce portions of the soft and tangy Petit Nuage, a French-style cheese made fresh weekly from February to October. The Petit Nuage won the Best of Class award in the “soft and semi-soft sheep’s milk cheeses” category at the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest last year.
Bates suggests melting Anabasque into a butternut squash risotto, tossing the Petit Nuage in a salad or presenting all four varieties on a cheese board paired with fruit preserves and nuts.
They do experiment with new varieties and plan to expand distribution of “Pecora Nocciola,” or “nutty ewe,” an Italian-style cheese, in 2016.
This February, Landmark Creamery will move production to the Thuli Family Creamery in Darlington. Eventually, they’d like their own production and tasting facility, but first want their own space for aging and packaging, which would enable them to produce “styles of cheese that need a little more hands-on work and observation,” Bates says.
Landmark Creamery cheeses are sold at Fromagination, Hy-Vee-Fitchburg and Whitney Way, Metcalfe’s-Hilldale, Steve’s Liquor on University Avenue and both Willy Street Co-op locations.
