A taste of Switzerland: Holmes County's Guggisberg honored to serve as cheese judge

BERLIN TWP. − You might call it a holy experience.

Being chosen to judge at the prestigious Swiss Cheese Awards Festival in the ski resort town of Verbier, Switzerland, was a humbling honor for Holmes County cheesemaker Richard Guggisberg.

He was able to call upon his years of experience and Swiss family heritage for the role.

Guggisberg has judged competitions in Wisconsin and Ohio, but this was his first such experience in Switzerland.

"I've got to admit, I was pretty honored," he said. "I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity. There are very strict regulations and restrictions as to traditions in the ways cheese is made, aged and handled the same way it has been for several hundred years. I respect that they keep that culture and tradition alive over there."

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Guggisberg serves on the board of the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association (WCMA) and represented Ohio and the eastern United States as he participated alongside judges from all over the world in Switzerland Sept. 22-24.

For perspective, Guggisberg said there were 2,500 entries in his last competition in the U.S., where there are more than 330 million residents.

"To give you an idea how big cheese is in Switzerland, they have a population of 8 million people, but they had over 1,100 entries," he said. "They brought in 140 judges from all over the world. They had judges from Turkey, Japan, Poland and Lithuania. Everyone was well represented."

WCMA is considered a worldwide organization, and they run the world competition and U.S. competition every other year.

"Through our organization, I have gotten to know some of the people, and they invited me to be a judge in Switzerland," Guggisberg said.

What do cheese judges look for?

Guggisberg oversaw two classes: Swiss cheese or Emmental and the Tilsiter class. Some of the cheeses were cured with herbs, and others with alpine flowers. In Swiss cheese, appearance is a big factor, according to Guggisberg.

"It takes a lot of skill and art to make the right size holes and well-distributed," he said. "Texture is another area of judging, along with finish or aroma. And flavor is the biggest part of it."

There were 32 entries in the Swiss class and 30 in the Tilsiter class, all of varying ages, from months to years, which added to the flavor.

"We had to eat a lot of cheese," he said with a laugh. "We sampled the cheese while looking at the eyes to see how well they were distributed, how shiny and well formed they are; you look at the surface to see how well the shape of the cheese is, and the finish on the outside.

"The big part is the flavor and how it develops in your mouth," Guggisberg said. "You have the initial flavor, and then a minute later you have a secondary fermentation that you pick up unique flavors. Taste and aroma is scored twice, so that counts the heaviest of all."

Of the judges he worked with, all experts in the industry, three spoke Swiss-German and the other spoke French. He had to rely on his Swiss-German to communicate, and they did so successfully.

"I was a little apprehensive about judging a cheese like Tilsiter because it is a surface-ripened cheese, with a pungent odor and unique flavor. But I think we all did just fine. After we sampled and marked down our score, then we had to back up our reasoning, and give our opinion on why we scored the way we did."

Guggisberg family roots in Switzerland

Guggisberg was able to visit relatives in Switzerland during his trip.

"I have some pretty deep roots in Switzerland," Guggisberg said. "But I never imagined I would get to do anything like this. My father went to school for cheesemaking in Switzerland. He was called a master cheesemaker. This was a very special opportunity, dear to my heart. I'm sure my father would have been proud. I would have loved to have him along."

Alfred and Margaret Guggisberg met in the Ziller Valley in Tyrol, Austria, in the 1940s. Alfred was a cheesemaker from Switzerland and Margaret worked in a knitting factory from Northern Italy. Margaret's job was to get milk every morning from the cheesehouse. That's how Richard Guggisberg's parents met.

The Guggisbergs came to America in 1947 after Alfred spent years of perfecting the craft of creating great traditional Swiss cheese from his childhood home in the Swiss Alps. He attended the Swiss Federal Molkereishulle (cheese maker’s institute), and when he came to Ohio, he was highly sought after by Amish dairy farmers looking for someone to transform the milk of their labors into delicious snack food.

Alfred eventually took over Doughty Valley Cheese and renamed it Guggisberg Cheese in 1950.

A decade later, the cheesemaker had developed a new type of Swiss cheese that better fit American tastes. The results of experimentation with local milk was a smaller wheel with smaller holes and a creamier flavor than the traditional Emmental Swiss. That was the birth of Guggisberg's Baby Swiss cheese.

After Alfred Guggisberg died in 1985, Richard followed in his father's footsteps. He is now the company president as Guggisberg Cheese has grown into one of the larger Swiss cheese manufacturers in the country.

Guggisberg said September was a special time to visit Switzerland. In the spring, the cows are brought up into the high mountain pastures to graze, where the richest, lushest grasses grow. Herdsman and cheesemakers milk the cows while they are up there, and in the fall they bring the cows back down the mountain.

"We got to see them bringing some of the cows down," he said. "It was kind of noisy, as the cows all had big bells on them during their long march down the mountains."

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Richard Guggisberg shares expertise as cheese judge in Switzerland