B.C. cheese, Buick Verano Turbo, Cheese trail

A cheese lover’s tour of B.C. creameries set to start

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A 2013 Buick Verano Turbo serves as the Cheesemobile for our B.C. Cheese Tour.
A 2013 Buick Verano Turbo serves as Official Cheesemobile for our B.C. Cheese Tour.

Francis has his Popemobile, CheeseLover.ca has its Cheesemobile.

It’s a luxurious Buick Verano Turbo to whisk us around British Columbia over the next three weeks. The mission is to see how much artisan and farmstead cheese we can enjoy—reporting on our tasting adventures here and on Facebook and Twitter.

As much as we look forward to sampling cheese new to our palates (and generally unavailable in Ontario), we especially look forward to getting to know the men and women who make the cheese. At our first stop, at Golden Ears Cheesecrafters, we’ll be getting into the make room to help make cheese curds.

Here’s the itinerary for the inaugural B.C. Cheese Tour, roughly in order of the routing we plan to take:

B.C. Cheese Tour II, perhaps in 2014

Starting with any of the above that we won’t be able to visit this summer and continuing on to

B.C. Cheese Tour III will focus on Vancouver Island:

Click here for Google Map showing all 25 artisan cheese producers in B.C.

Much thanks to General Motors Canada for providing the Buick Verano for our B.C. Cheese Tour.

—Georgs Kolesnikovs

Georgs Kolesnikovs is Cheese-Head-in-Chief at CheeseLover.ca and founder of The Great Canadian Cheese Festival.

Cheese business, Plaisirs Gourmets

Plaisirs Gourmets markets cheese beautifully

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Porn, in the lexicon of today, creates or satisfies an excessive desire for something, especially something luxurious or delicious, thus, one hears of an addiction to real-estate porn, or the irresistible appeal of food porn.

Cheese porn has been raised to the highest level seen in Canada by Plaisirs Gourmets, the Quebec artisan cheese distributor, with publication of its catalogue of artisan and farmstead cheeses produced in La Belle Province. The result is a thing of beauty while serving to most effectively market cheese.

The French language edition features all 15 cheesemakers represented by Plaisirs Gourmets . The English version features the eight producers who are federally licensed to sell cheese across Canada.

The photos here are from the French edition. They show how the catalogue is organized and presented. Each cheese is given a double-page spread (photo above) for a gorgeous photograph and detailed information, from the story behind the cheese to age, size, dominant flavour to awards won, ingredients and nutritional data. Each producer is also given a double-page spread (photo below) displaying an appealing portrait of the artisans who make the cheese and an outline of family history, dairy or farm information, cheeses made and contact co-ordinates.

It’s a classic example of how to market a food product beautifully and effectively. Our congratulations to co-owners Nancy Portelance and Louis Gadreau and the entire team at Plaisirs Gourmets based near Quebec City.

Click on  the images for an enlarged view, or click here for the online edition in English.

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Cape Vessey, Fifth Town Artisan Cheese

Fifth Town introduces Italian cheese

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Fifth Town imports Cap Cressy from Lombardy in Italy.
Fifth Town imports Cap Cressy from Lombardy in Italy.

Fifth Town Artisan Cheese has started selling Italian cheeses at its Prince Edward County retail store. The new owners have been importing cheese from Italy for decades as Bertozzi Importing of Etobicoke, Ontario.

Many of the imported cheeses—mainly from Piedmont and Lombardy—have names similar to names of the award-winning Canadian cheeses produced by Fifth Town before financial difficulties forced it to shut down in early 2012. For example:

Patricia Secord and Dr. Hugo Bertozzi, third generation producers, affineurs and purveyors of artisan cheeses, historically in Italy, and now in Canada, purchased Fifth Town Artisan Cheese in November 2012.  The transition period between shutdown and start-up is a long process, the company said, but will ultimately lead to a refurbished manufacturing facility and world-class cheese.  The cheese dairy is set to be producing Fifth Town favourites, like Cape Vessey, by early 2014.

In other developments at Fifth Town, it has restarted its cheese blog.