Four artisan cheesemakers from Quebec as well as Canadian cheese giants Saputo and Agropur medalled in the World Cheese Awards last week, the largest cheese competition on the planet. Hosted at the BBC Good Food Show in the U.K., 201 judges from 19 different countries judged 2,629 cheeses from 29 countries. Louis Aird of Saputo was the sole Canadian judge.
Cornish Blue brought the World Champion Cheese title back to the U.K., being the first British cheese honoured in more than a decade. Here are the Canadian winners, starting with the four Quebec artisan cheesemakers entered by their distributor, Fromages CDA:
Hard goats’ milk cheese plain
Gold medal: Le Moutier ~ Fromagerie de L’Abbaye St Benoit
Rind washed cheese not in any other class
Silver Medal: La Mont Jacob ~ Fromagerie Blackburn
Rind washed cheese not in any other class
Bronze medal: Guillaume Tell ~ Fromagerie Féodal
Cheese made with the milk of more than one animal
Bronze medal: Soeur Angéle ~ Fromagerie Kaiser
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Rind washed cheese not in any other class
Super Gold medal: La Sauvagine ~ Saputo/Alexis de Portneuf
Brie made from pasteurized milk
Silver medal: Cendré de Lune ~ Saputo/duVillage 1860
All other new cheeses. Open to any new cheese first marketed after 01/10/09
Bronze medal: Tentation de Laurier ~ Saputo
White mold ripened soft or unpressed cows’ milk cheese with savoury additives
Bronze medal: Lady Laurier d’Arthabaska ~ Saputo/du Village 1860
Soft goats’ milk cheese plain – mold-ripened
Bronze medal: Le Cendrillon ~ Saputo/Alexis de Portneuf
Brie made from pasteurized milk
Bronze medal: Saint-Honoré ~ Saputo/Alexis de Portneuf
Blue vein cheese any variety, uncut, natural rind
Bronze medal: Bleubry ~ Saputo/Alexis de Portneuf
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Camembert made from pasteurized milk
Gold medal: Camembert l’Extra ~ Agropur
Cheese made with the milk of more than one animal
Silver medal: Vaudreuil mi-vache/mi-chêvre ~ Agropur
New Cheese – hard or semi-hard. Open to any new cheese first marketed after 01/10/09
Silver medal: Rivière Rouge ~Agropur
Ricotta
Bronze medal: Ricotta Prestigio ~ Agropur
For a list of U.S. winners, visit Cheesemonger’s Weblog.
The World Cheese Awards has been bringing together buyers and sellers from the dairy industry worldwide for 20 years. The BBC Good Food Show is the biggest and most cosmopolitan cheese festival ever staged in the U.K.,, with almost 100,000 consumers tasting cheese after the international panel of experts completed their judging.
—Rebecca Crosgrey
Rebecca Crosgrey is Event Co-Ordinator at The Great Canadian Cheese Festival. She patrols the Web for cheese news for CheeseLover.ca.
