For years, chefs and gourmands in the United States would settle for nothing less than the smooth, white balls of mozzarella di bufala, airlifted from Italy. Hanns Michael Heick is hoping to crack Italy’s mozzarella monopoly in a quixotic quest to produce the finest mozzarella this side of Naples.”There was a point in my life where I didn’t even know water buffalo existed,” said Heick, who was born in Vienna and spent much of his adult life as a wine exporter. “Now I’m an expert.” His water buffalo, about 200 head, roam a 50-acre spread in the remote foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains.
