Blakesville Wins Gold, Silver, and Best Goat’s Milk Curds at World Cheese Championship Contest
St. Germain is officially the “Best in the World”!
“As a new independent creamery, it’s wonderfully encouraging to have our cheeses featured so prominently on the world stage, and particularly in our debut at this esteemed competition.”
- Head Cheesemaker Veronica Pedraza
March 2022
Blakesville Creamery continues its 2022 award-winning streak with two medals and a top ranking at the 2022 World Cheese Championship Contest, the dairy world's premier technical competition evaluated by a team of skilled judges from across the globe.
St. Germain, a Pyrenees-style cheese, won Gold in the Hard Goat’s Milk Cheese category, giving it the accolade of “Best in the World” of its kind. St. Germain is a cooked and pressed curd goat cheese aged for 3-4 months with a natural rind. Murray’s Cheese describes it as "supple and snackable” and has a distinctive goat cheese tang up front followed by subtle herbaceous notes that bring out an essence of pine needles.
Lindeline, a large format ash-ripened cheese, won Silver in the Soft-Ripened Goat’s Milk Cheese category, effectively making it the “Best in the United States.” Playfully named in honor of Blakesville Creamery Owner Lynde Uihlein, Lindeline’s flavor profile is of crème fraiche and mushrooms; the cheese is slightly firm when young, with the interior paste breaking down into a nice creamline after a few weeks of aging.
Additionally, Blakesville Creamery’s Goat's Milk Cheese Curds was the only finalist in the overall Cheese Curd category not made of cow’s milk. Coming in fifth place, Blakesville represents the highest-ranked goat’s milk cheese curds in the world!
The two World Championship medals follow shortly after Blakesville Creamery won its first-ever award, given by the Good Food Awards earlier this year for the semi-firm cheese Sunny Ridge. This recent win marks three prestigious awards for the creamery in as many months.
Blakesville Creamery opened in June 2020 and is women-owned and -operated under the leadership of Head Cheesemaker & General Manager Veronica Pedraza; Business Manager Juli Kaufmann; and Owner Uihlein.
“It is an incredible honor to be among this group of cheese producers and dairy professionals from across the world,” says Pedraza. She continues, “As a new independent creamery, it’s wonderfully encouraging to have our cheeses featured so prominently on the world stage, and particularly in our debut at this esteemed competition.”
As a farmstead creamery, Blakesville’s cheeses are made by hand on the same farm where the goats are raised, and their milk is collected. The adjoining Blakesville Dairy Farm, also owned by Uihlein and led by Farm Manager Brent Foat and Herd Manager Whitney Sakal, humanely raises over 1000 goats using sustainable farming practices to yield the highest quality of milk for handmade artisan cheeses.
Blakesville Creamery’s award-winning St. Germain, Lindeline, and curds can be found in restaurants and specialty food markets throughout the country, including Murray’s Cheese and Saxelby Cheesemongers in New York City, Farmshop in Los Angeles, as well as various Eataly locations nationwide. For more information on where to find Blakesville Creamery locally and nationwide, please click here.
ABOUT THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CHEESE CONTEST
The World Championship Cheese Contest is the world’s premier technical cheese, butter, and yogurt competition. The World Contest has been hosted by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association biennially since 1957.
Entries are evaluated by a team of skilled technical judges from all over the world. Starting from a maximum possible 100 points, deductions are made for various defects found by each judge. Defects are noted in the areas of flavor, body and texture, salt, color, finish, packaging, and other appropriate attributes. A Gold medal, Silver medal, and Bronze medal are awarded to the three highest-scoring entries in each class. The 2022 World Championship Cheese Contest had a total of 2,978 entries.
Find more information about the 2022 World Championship Cheese Contest here