Culture Magazine

46 culturecheesemag.com THE HOT LIS T 202 3 Consider Bardwell Farm says its Rupert is "inspired by Gruyère and Comté." "Gruyère is the name of a specific Alpine cheese that has stood the test of time, reflects the taste of a place, and should have the right to its own name," says Consider Bardwell co-owner and founding partner Angela Miller. "We named our Alpine style Rupert [for a nearby town] because our cheeses reflect the taste of our own little corner of rural, mountainous Vermont … our unique soil composition, weather, and native grasses." There are also producers who push it a little further, selling "American gruyère," "Cheddar gruyère," and "Wisconsin gruyère." The last is what Cheese Brothers founder and president Eric Ludy uses at his operation. "There's a long, rich history of Swiss cheesemakers bringing their techniques and standards of quality to Wisconsin," he says. "My own great grandfather Fred was a Swiss cheesemaker who opened up some of the first cheese factories in my area of northern Wisconsin." I heard this ancestral defense from many American cheesemakers working with recipes passed down to them by first-generation ancestors, many from—you guessed it—Europe. "I came from Italy," says BelGioioso's Auricchio. "I brought the culture and the knowledge and understanding of what the cheese is supposed to taste like." Ludy agrees: "The United States is a nation of immigrants … our forebears took the names of their cheeses and brought them with them when they came to this country," he says. "We're not stealing the names or mimicking the styles. We are rooted in the same traditions as our European cheesemaking friends are!" This is especially true in the case of Wisconsin cheesemaker Emmi Roth, the US arm of Switzerland's largest exporter of Gruyère to the States, Emmi Group. Emmi Roth makes a line of Alpine-style cheeses that were originally marketed in the US as "Grand Cru Gruyère," but in 2012 the name was changed to "Grand Cru" at the request of their parent company and the Swiss Gruyère industry. As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the time, the change reflected the fact that the cheese wasn't made in the Gruyères region of Switzerland and that, although the cheeses are similar, they do not taste the same. Consider Bardwell Farm's Rupert "Since 2013, we have not used the word 'Gruyère' in … cheeses we produce and market locally in the US or in any of the brands controlled by our US subsidiary Emmi Roth," says Simone Burgener, a spokesperson for Emmi Group. However, brands that purchase Roth's cheeses and package them under their own labels don't always follow these rules. "We point out the legal situation and the risks to clients and recommend that they refrain from using 'Gruyère,'" she says, "[but] we ultimately have no influence on how, under what name, and at what price such private labels are sold by retailers." THE NEXT CHAPTER Kaser declined to remark on his twice-defeated legal team's next steps. Burgener spoke for Emmi Group in expressing unmeasured disappointment about the decision to consider Gruyère a generic term: "For consumers in the US and the marketing of this traditional Swiss cheese speciality there, this represents a step backwards." For his part, Castaneda is not opposed to European geographic indications (GIs) and is hopeful about "We named our Alpine style Rupert [for a nearby town] because our cheeses reflect the taste of our own little corner of rural, mountainous Vermont … our unique soil composition, weather, and native grasses." PHOTO: ©Le Gruyère AOP

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