The state hosts contests at the world, U.S. and state level, there’s a grilled cheese championship in Dodgeville, and Cheese Days is held every other year in Monroe.

There’s the Dairy State Cheese & Beer Festival on April 15 in Kenosha, another in June that celebrates cheese, beer and bacon in New Glarus, and the Bluffs, Beer and Cheese Fest on April 22 in La Crosse.

But a new event scheduled for this fall in Madison is expected to draw foodies from around the country and include tours of cheese plants, a cheese ball and a cheese marketplace on East Washington Avenue just off Capitol Square in conjunction with the Dane County Farmers’ Market.

The Art of Cheese Festival, Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, is a production from the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, a marketing organization founded in 1983 as the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, a promotional and marketing group for dairy farmers. The organization receives 10 cents for every 100 pounds of milk produced in the state, 90% of which is used to make cheese.

So a cheese festival was a natural fit for a group that helped foster the state’s boom in artisan cheese production and is trying to grow demand nationally and internationally.

“Our mission is to drive demand for Wisconsin milk,” said Suzanne Fanning, chief marketing officer for the state’s $44 billion dairy industry. “We’re really trying to promote cheese outside of the state of Wisconsin. We’ve been doing a lot of research on our core target, which is what we have called the food fanatic, and we found that they really love to travel for food experiences. And so we really want to set ourselves up in Wisconsin to be much like going to wine country out in California.”

Wisconsin ranks second in milk production, only behind California, and produces more than 31 billion pounds of milk a year. The state is home to 6,090 licensed dairy herds and 1.2 million dairy cows that on average each produce 224 gallons of milk a month, according to the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service.

But when it comes to cheese, no other state comes close to Wisconsin, which produces 3.4 billion pounds of cheese annually and accounts for more than 25% of all cheese produced in the U.S. The state also accounts for 48% of specialty cheese produced in the country, a figure that grew to 877 million pounds in 2021 from 575 million pounds in 2011.

The Art of Cheese weekend will include exclusive tours of dairy farms, creameries and chef-prepared meals. There will be classes on making and cooking with cheese, pairing cheese with other foods and drinks and crafting cheese boards. Area restaurants are expected to offer up special menus featuring cheese, while about a dozen cheesemakers will take part in a cheese fair and marketplace on the morning of Sept. 30, adding to those who are normally on the square for the farmers market.

The festival, which had originally been planned for 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will also include the Wisconsin Cheese Ball at the Garver Feed Mill, where attendees will take in live music, food, drinks and cheese tastings.

The hope is that 30% of those attending the three-day event will come from outside Wisconsin to experience cheese in its native state.

“Education is certainly an important component of this,” said Rachel Kerr, director of experiential and brand marketing for the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin. “People really want to understand more about the products they’re tasting.”

Photos: U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

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U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

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U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

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U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

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U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

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U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

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U.S. Championship Cheese Contest