Sartori Cheese
With all the 20-pound wheels of cheese being flipped and coated and rubbed at Sartori Cheese Company, management has landed on a brilliant way to spark extra motivation in staff tasked with the job.
“We’ve told them, ‘Hey folks, what you’re doing could be the next winner,’” says Mike Matucheski, master cheesemaker at the fourth-generation company based in Antigo and Plymouth.
Matucheski knows what he’s talking about. Sartori cheeses, many that he has developed, have won more than 200 ribbons at cheese contests in the past decade. The latest and biggest, Grand Champion at the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest in Green Bay, came in March for the company’s Reserve Black Pepper BellaVitano.
That prize gave Wisconsin a triple crown of champions in the past three big U.S. cheese events — joining world champion Roth’s Grand Cru Surchoix and Roelli Cheese’s Little Mountain, best of show winner at last summer’s American Cheese Society conference. This year’s ACS event is July 26-29 in Denver; the next world contest is March 6-8 at Monona Terrace.
“Across the company, it’s everybody’s secret favorite,” Matucheski says of the black pepper-coated cheese. “It’s not the biggest seller but it’s everybody’s favorite because it tastes good and it’s simple.”
Black pepper is one of the original flavors of the company’s BellaVitano line, which was inspired by a sweet Italian cheese called piave. With sweetness and a little bit of crunch, BellaVitano conjures a blend of parmesan and cheddar. The line has been in production for about a decade, using BellaVitano Gold as the base in which other flavors are soaked (such as Merlot or raspberry, made with New Glarus Brewing’s Raspberry Tart ale) or coated (with flavors such as black pepper or espresso). The different soaks and rubs create wheels of various colors that are as appealing to the eyes as the taste buds, and Matucheski is constantly brainstorming to come up with more flavor combinations.
“I have one of the best jobs ever because I get to play,” Matucheski says.
Different flavors age at varied lengths; the black pepper is aged about 9 months. Unlike many championship-caliber cheeses, the black pepper and its flavored siblings are easily found at grocery stores at a price that isn’t a huge splurge.
The Black Pepper BellaVitano, and the other flavors, sell in grocery stores in the $5-$6 range for a 5.3-ounce wedge ($7.75 on the Sartori website), more than mass-produced or commodity cheeses but less than many high-end artisanal cheeses. Sartori doesn’t release production numbers, but spokeswoman Molly Rippinger says its cheeses are available in all 50 states and 30 countries.
“I was taking a walk the other day and was thinking, ‘Man, I just want to make cheese so everyone can have it,’” he says. “You want to make money, but what’s the point if it’s only available to certain people?”
Higher production numbers keep Sartori prices lower, though its cheeses are considered artisanal because they are hand-crafted. The company spent $14 million in 2014 to upgrade and expand its facilities in Plymouth and Antigo.
“We’re not a tiny company and we don’t present ourselves as a tiny company,” Matucheski says. “We’re really proud that we can make this wonderful cheese at a large scale.”
Throughout most of its history, Sartori was a commodity producer of Italian-style cheeses. In 2007 Sartori started making and marketing under its own label, and the flurry of awards began.
The renovations were in part to help BellaVitano get even better, Matucheski says, and it’s working.
“I get great satisfaction telling people that winning wheel was made in the new plant,” Matucheski says. “So you know what? There’s going to be more.”
