Chris Roelli’s Cheddar Has the Blues—But That's a *Very* Good Thing

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

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Each type of cheese has a unique history, some lengthier than others, and many with layers of folklore woven in for good measure. Take, for instance, Camembert, allegedly invented by an 18th-century dairymaid named Marie Harel who was inspired by a French priest making Brie in the height of the French Revolution. Or, consider the more easily traced tale of Gorgonzola, most likely named for the town of Gorgonzola, Italy in which it was first produced around A.D. 879. And then, there's the decidedly straightforward story of cheddar with its first recorded making in Cheddar, England in the 12th century. Eventually, cheddar made its way stateside, and by the mid-19th century it was the most widely produced cheese in the United States.

Unlike other well-known cheeses, cheddar made in the U.S. quickly became synonymous with industrialization as production moved from farm to factory. Enter: Roelli Cheese Haus, a family-owned cheesemaking operation in Wisconsin that got its start making commodity cheddar nearly a century ago. Today, fourth-generation cheesemaker Chris Roelli is still churning out incredible cheddars—only now, he does it on his own terms. I sat down with Chris to learn more about his family's business, their innovative blue-veined cheddars, and the Wisconsin cheesemaking community.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

MADISON TRAPKIN: ​​Can you tell me who you are and what you do?

CHRIS ROELLI: My name's Chris Roelli and I'm a fourth-generation Master Cheesemaker here at Roelli Cheese Haus, in Shullsburg, Wisconsin.

MT: What does it mean to be a Wisconsin cheesemaker?

CR: For me, being a Wisconsin cheesemaker [means] continuing the history of cheesemaking in Wisconsin. To really tell the story of why cheese in Wisconsin is so special, you have to go back to the great immigration in the late 1800s, early 1900s when [people] from around the world started coming here. Most of the Wisconsin [landscape] is very similar to the flatter parts of Europe, and a lot of those immigrants were farmers and trained cheesemakers, [which] go hand in hand. Cheesemaking [in Wisconsin] goes back multiple generations, and in my family it goes back four generations. I’m really proud to be able to continue to [make cheese] today with tools at my disposal that my great-grandpa and my grandpa and even my dad didn't have.

The farmers here take a lot of pride in producing some of the very best milk in the world, and as a cheesemaker, if I take great milk and don't mess it up, I'm going to usually get some pretty good cheese out of it. We work hand in hand. The industry as a whole is supported from top to bottom, not only by the people of the state, but by the scholars of the state, the leaders of the state, and the leaders of the industry. We've come a long way as an industry and for me, that's really what does it.

MT: It’s pretty impressive that Roelli Cheese Haus is a fourth-generation operation. Can you tell me the history of the company?

CR: Our story goes back to my great-grandfather who immigrated from Altbüron, Switzerland to this area in the early 1900s. He came as a trained cheesemaker and took a job [with what was known] at the time [as] Hick’s Cheese Co-Op. He made cheese for a number of years and turned it over to my grandfather, who started to really grow the business by volume and by making different types of cheese. Eventually in the '50s, [he] converted everything to commodity, large volume cheddar. My dad took over for him, but unfortunately in the '90s we had to shut the plant down. There were a number of contributing factors including the economy—everybody was doing volume cheddar. The margin was about 2 cents per pound of cheese.

Growing up in the business, I got my cheesemaker's license in 1989 and I’d made cheese next to my dad and my grandpa for a number of years before even doing that. I had to make a promise that I wouldn't ever sell cheese on the commodity market again, so I made the commitment to be a small [producer] and to do quality over quantity as an artisan cheesemaker. At that time, artisan cheese in the U.S. had about a 12-year run where it was really rapidly growing. I felt that with our family history, our name, and our retail store that was still in operation, that we had a really good chance of building a brand as an artisan cheesemaker. That's the history there in a nutshell.

MT: What was it like growing up in a family of cheesemakers?

CR: I literally grew up alongside my dad and the rest of my family in the cheese and milk hauling business. For me, that's really all I knew. We made cheese six days a week and we hauled milk seven days a week. It's a lifestyle more than a job—you live it, it never goes away, and that's got its good and bad parts.

After I had gotten away [from the family business] and done a few other things in my life, I realized that cheese was really something that was always there for me. I knew it, it was something I was comfortable with, and it was something that I’d really always wanted to do. Now, [I’ve] raised a family. My wife works with me, my cousin works with me. My dad and uncles are now retired, but it's still very much a family business. There's days that I'm sure that my wife would just soon see me walk out the door, but we get by pretty well and we're a good partnership. Cheesemaking is a hard job. It takes a toll on the body after a number of years, but we’ve still got a few years left in us.

MT: Two of your artisan cheeses in particular have gotten a lot of attention in recent years, namely the cheddar blues. How did these come to be?

CR: When I started making cheese on a small scale in 2005 or 2006, I knew that we needed something different to really build our brand on. I wasn't quite sure what it [would be], but I really liked blue cheese, especially with a meal. I [was] really familiar with cheddar, [having] made a lot over the years, and I love the flavor of a true traditional English-style, aged cheddar. So I thought to myself, "I think that I can create that flavor and meld the two together on purpose." A world-renowned cheese scholar was here visiting and helping out on another cheese that I was working on. They tasted our Dunbarton Blue and literally took the only half wheel that I had at the time with them to dinner and showed it to two cheese buyers. The next day they both called me and wanted to buy the cheese, and that's how our Dunbarton got traction.

From there, it just grew faster really than we could keep up with. I’ve often said that Dunbarton was our lightning in the bottle. I don't know that we would be sitting here talking today if that cheese had not taken off. We built our whole business around that.

MT: How did you go from Dunbarton to Red Rock?

CR: As we grew and evolved, the other types of cheese really evolved with us. Red Rock was exactly the opposite of what Dunbarton was, and it was really the cheese that came along because of that question that I got from so many of my customers: "What else do you make?" So, then I went to work and figured out other things.

To me, there's two different types of cheddar. There's English farmhouse, which is a totally different type of cheddar than what most of the U.S. is used to. Then there’s Red Rock, [an] American-style, mild, young cheddar. We let it develop a rind and add some blue to it, then it evolves into something much more complex. Even though it's basically a fairly simple cheddar-style cheese, it evolves into something so much bigger because of our taste of place here at Roelli Cheese. Red Rock really [came] along [to be] the sister cheese to Dunbarton. It's the exact opposite of what Dunbarton was meant to be.

MT: As a certified Master Cheesemaker, what does Wisconsin's cheesemaking community mean to you?

CR: Being a Master Cheesemaker [in Wisconsin] is like [being in] a small club. It's a network that I could pick up the phone and call at any time, and every single one of them would help me out if I needed it. It takes a lot to become a Master Cheesemaker, it's not an easy process, [so] we're all proud. I'm a certified Master in cheddar, Alpine cheese, and blue cheese. I'm the only one in the United States that has mastered cheddar blue, so I'm really proud of that.

MT: As you should be! You make a lot of award-winning cheeses, too, which is another thing to be proud of. What are some of the awards you’ve won?

CR: We've been very fortunate to have won awards with four of our best-selling cheeses over the years, and I think that's a testament to the Master Cheesemaker program [as well as] the support and guidance that I've had over the years. But what really drives me to enter these contests a lot of times is knowing where I stand against my peers. How have we done as a team at Roelli Cheese, how do we stack up? And that's really why I have always entered the contest, for the feedback. Our biggest win to date has been the American Cheese Society Best of Show [that we won] with our Little Mountain. In 2022, we took a top 20 overall with our Red Rock at the World Competition in Madison. That was a big one because of the fact that it's not a normal cheese, it's not something that you see every day. And for 60 of the world's foremost experts on cheese to all realize that there was something special with that, really was something that I really am very proud of.

For us to know that we can stack up amongst the best cheesemakers in the world with four of our everyday products, it's really special. It's humbling to know that we're able to make—here in southwest Wisconsin, in a very small cheese plant—some of the very best cheese in the world. That's something we're really proud of.

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Our friends at Wisconsin Cheese are committed to showcasing all the amazing cheeses the state has to offer—and there are a lot of them. Wisconsin has more flavors, varieties, and styles of cheese than anywhere else in the world. From Italian classics like Parmesan and ricotta to Wisconsin Originals like colby and muenster, this cheese-obsessed state has a little something for everyone. Find out more about Wisconsin Cheese by visiting their site.