MONROE — When Eric Schmid moved to Connecticut a year ago, he said he was moving east for the chance to work as a craft cheese maker at an upstart company trying to make a name for itself in a business that is the lifeblood of his home county back in Wisconsin.

The 2012 Monticello graduate recently won the grand prize in the 2023 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest, and the penultimate award went to him and his new employer, Arethusa Farm Dairy in Bantam, Connecticut. Yet in interviews with local and national media, he credits his hometown upbringing, the patience of Green County cheesemakers in teaching him; and his experience learning to make cheese the right way and in small batches for helping him win.

“Every day has been an adventure,” Schmid said of moving to Connecticut with his then-pregnant girlfriend. “I like it out here but home is always pretty special to me.”

Schmid won the top award last week for his Europa, an aged Gouda. With a score of 98.739 out of 100, Europa topped 2,249 entries from 197 dairy companies and cooperatives across 35 U.S. states to win the coveted top prize. He estimates he has done at least 10 interviews since winning the award.

“The whole thing was pretty unexpected,” he said, noting that prior to the announcement of winners he thought he would be lucky to finish in the top 20 of the many quality entries. “Then I heard my name and was like ‘what?’ …”

Schmid, the son of Rusty and Teresa Schmid, said there’s no secret to making quality small-batch, artisan cheese, and Gouda varieties have always been among his favorite. Gouda is a sweet, creamy, cow’s milk cheese originally from the Netherlands. It is one of the most popular cheeses worldwide.

He credits the quality of milk from the Connecticut cows for his ability to make the winning cheese, in partnership with his teammates at the 300-cow Arethusa Farm.

“Everything about making cheese has been done,” he said in a recent phone interview. “It’s just been forgotten. Cheese is cheese. You also have to have some luck and good milk.”

Schmid said he did little growing up in Monticello for anyone to think he would go on to win an honor that’s so close to the hearts of residents his home county. As a young man, he knew the area was a cheese center and he wasn’t anti-cheese — he just didn’t think about it much until he was looking for work. He then embarked on a nearly decade long career kicking around the cheese plants here and learning the trade.

 Early on, he concedes, he was enamored by the natural processes that create cheese, the chemistry of it all, especially fermentation. He even experimented making mead.

“I was really good at getting into trouble,” he said of his formative years in high school. “I wasn’t even close to making cheese yet.”

Eventually, he would graduate from high school and take a first job at Chula Vista Cheese outside Browntown. He later moved to Oregon at age 23, his first foray outside of the area, and he spent that time not only making cheese there but milking the cows first.

“I guess at that point I kind of got into it,” he said.

His first contest was a 2019 state fair where he won in the open class for semi-soft cheeses. And before entering the 2023 national contest, his Europa Gouda won awards in smaller local contests among area cheesemakers.

“He just kind of fell in love with cheesemaking,” said his father. “He’s been a cheesemaker at a number of different places,” including in Juda and Monticello.

As a state, Wisconsin, meanwhile, took home 54 of the “Best of Class” finishes of the 113 total classes — the most of any other state.

“As cheesemakers, we’re really just stewards of the milk and the process,” he said, noting that the quality of milk and myriad other factors can have a big impact on taste. “I’m really glad to be a part of that.”

These days, Schmid is thinking of moving back to the Midwest and has explored a number of opportunities in management and more intensive laboratory work. Still, he has left an indelible mark on his current employer and earned some major bragging rights back home in Wisconsin.

“They (Arethusa Farms) might let me keep the ribbon,” he said. “I think they would like to keep the paper weight (trophy).”