{"id":5864,"date":"2018-12-31T15:15:16","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T20:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cheeseloverca.wordpress.com\/?p=5864"},"modified":"2018-12-31T15:15:16","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T20:15:16","slug":"best-bites-ten-most-memorable-canadian-cheeses-of-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/2018\/12\/31\/best-bites-ten-most-memorable-canadian-cheeses-of-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Bites: Ten most memorable Canadian cheeses of 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time to bring the curtain down on another year and to recall the memorable Canadian cheese tasted during 2018\u2014with the help of friends in fromage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plus an outstanding butter, one of several grass-fed butters that have appeared on the market this year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vanessa Simmons, cheese sommelier at Savvy Company<\/a> and Savvy Cool Curds<\/a>, the first artisan cheese-of-the-month club featuring hard-to-come-by cheese made across Canada, selected five very different cheeses:<\/p>\n

Hatley Road – Fromagerie La Station<\/a>, Compton, Qu\u00e9bec<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Hatley has been showing beautifully in 2018 on cheeseboards as a rich, full flavour washed-rind cheese made with organic farmstead milk. A blend of milky, fruity and nutty flavours balanced with salt. As far as award winners go, it’s not hard to see why!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fleuron – Fromagerie de la Table Ronde<\/a>, Sainte-Sophie, Qu\u00e9bec<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A natural, rustic, salt and pepper looking rind covers this elegant, tall column-shaped organic cow\u2019s milk blue cheese. Inside hides a soft, often oozy, pale ivory paste with slate-grey veining, concentrated closer to the centre of the cheese. Earthy, woody and fungal aromas blend nicely with vegetal, creamy and slight salty flavours, making it the perfect mid-range blue for tasting pleasure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Figaro \u2013 Glengarry Fine Cheese<\/a>, Lancaster, Ontario<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Ever since I started in the Canadian cheese industry, Figaro has made and remained on my Top 10 list. \u00a0Yeasty and rich, lactic, full of creamy, tangy flavour, it’s always a crowd-pleaser, disappearing in minutes!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cranberry Ch\u00e8vre – Mariposa Dairy<\/a>, Lindsay, Ontario<\/strong>\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

Cranberry Ch\u00e8vre is nothing short of \u201cwow\u201d as a perfect blend of both sweet and savoury flavours where fruity goodness meets tarty tang rounded off by the mild spicy hint of cinnamon. As a final step in making the cheese, plump cranberries are hand-rolled onto the fresh ch\u00e8vre logs to ensure full coverage and less damage to the fruit\u2014guaranteeing a gorgeous display for your holiday cheese board.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maggie’s Cheese Ball – Fromagerie Les Folies Berg\u00e8res<\/a>, Saint-Sixte, Qu\u00e9bec<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This holiday treasure is only available locally, and seasonally at Christmas time\u2014made with love by Maggie Paradis. A blend of her local cow, goat and sheep milk cheeses, it’s a savoury sensation rolled in crushed pecans, rich and velvety in texture and sharp with a mild onion flavour.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here are two picks from Jackie Armet, cheese co-ordinator at Canadian Cheese Awards<\/a> and The Great Canadian Cheese Festival<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Grey Owl – Fromagerie Le D\u00e9tour<\/a>, T\u00e9miscouata-sur-le-Lac, Qu\u00e9bec <\/strong><\/p>\n

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At every meeting of the Awards and Cheese Festival organizing committee, I\u2019m asked to bring a selection of Canadian cheeses for us to graze on while planning our cheese events. One cheese that stopped the discussion was Grey Owl. It was in perfect condition, with its beautiful contrast in paste and rind, and a dazzling flavour of lemon and tang in your month. It took us 20 minutes to get back to our meeting. It is cheese that always starts a conversation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mountainoak Farmstead 2-year Aged Gouda – Mountainoak Cheese<\/a>, New Hamburg, Ontario<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Everyone needs a go-to cheese. With a texture like parmesan, the subtle crunch, quality milk and consistency, you can’t help snacking on this cheese. Well done, Mountainoak!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Janice Beaton of Janice Beaton Cheese Partners<\/a>,<\/strong> there is only a single highlight:<\/p>\n

Big Momma \u2013 Monforte Dairy<\/a>, Stratford, Ontario<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Hands down for me this year\u2019s Best Bite was Big Momma, from Ruth Khlasen and Monforte Dairy. It blew me away. Perhaps I had the good fortune of tasting from a sublime piece\u2014lucky me! The combination of pillowy, creamy smooth texture and the outstanding flavour of water buffalo milk, it t was all sweetness and light. With a good measure of enduring flavour underpinning the whole experience: gently lactic and subtly earthy. Wowza! It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve been transported when cheese hits my palate. Big Momma took me there!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whenever we visit La Belle Province, we seek out outstanding cheese that we cannot find in Ontario, fromage that is provincially licensed and thus not available outside Qu\u00e9bec. At Yannick Fromagerie<\/a>, in the Vieux Limoilou neighbourhood of Qu\u00e9bec City, Nathalie Filion, introduced us to one such cheese:<\/p>\n

K\u00e9nogami \u2013 Fromagerie Lehmann<\/a>, H\u00e9bertville, Qu\u00e9bec<\/strong><\/p>\n

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K\u00e9nogami, a soft washed-rind beauty made by Fromagerie Lehmann with thermized milk from Brown Swiss cows in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. It presents a wonderful soft, herbal aroma and tastes of cream, butter and nut.<\/p>\n

The Lehmann family is very conscientious about the care they provide both to their animals and to their pasture. The farm uses no GMOs, no pesticides and no chemical fertilizer. They rely on a variety of wild plants to feed the small herd in the summer and in the winter they feed them hay and grain\u00a0produced on the farm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cur\u00e9-H\u00e9bert \u2013 Fromagerie l\u2019Autre Versant<\/a>,<\/strong> H\u00e9bertville, Qu\u00e9bec<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is something special about the climate and the soil in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region as the final outstanding cheese of the 2018 Top 10 comes from a fromagerie a few kilometres from Fromagerie Lehmann.<\/p>\n

Cur\u00e9-H\u00e9bert is semi-soft, washed-rind farm cheese made with raw milk drawn from the Fromagerie l\u2019Autre Versant\u2019s herd of Ayrshire cows. Its orange-brown rind is partially covered by a fluffy white coat. Cur\u00e9-H\u00e9bert features a mild aroma of cream, butter, mushroom and a hint of sweetness (honey or caramel). It tastes very slightly rustic and sweet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Andy Shay, a long-time friend in fromage who recently moved from Sobeys Ontario to oversee cheese and charcuterie at Jan K Overweel Ltd<\/a><\/strong>., threw us a curve, albeit a welcome one:<\/p>\n

\"\"
Can-Dairy founders Mitch Yurkiw and Drew McIver.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Actually, mine is not cheese, but butter, and a tiny amount of cheese. Emerald Grasslands<\/a> <\/strong>sets a new benchmark in the fast-growing Canadian butter category. Clarksburg-based Can-Dairy founders Mitch Yurkiw and Drew McIver are trying to make the world a better place, one delicious pat of butter at a time!<\/p>\n

They contract milk only with Jersey cow farmers, known for their extra thick and yellow cream. But these are not just ordinary Jersey cows, they are certified grass fed on regenerative (sustainable) organic farms. With this amazing milk, Emerald Grasslands churns, a more gentle process on the fat structure, the butter and produces 84% MF butter\u2014perfect for baking pastries. \u00a0For their salted version they sourced hand-harvested sea salt from Vancouver Island Salt Company, near Courtenay, British Columbia.<\/p>\n

The result of all this care in sourcing and production is a mind-blowing, super-creamy butter that is rich and with floral notes, a rusticity of cows and just the right hint of salt. Truly. the way to make the most of an artisan crusty bread. \u00a0We rarely have a chance to taste the wonders of Echire or Isigny St. Mere, but now, maybe that is OK.<\/p>\n

Rich and Drew are next using some of their milk for making Cheddar. I had the chance to taste an early prototype and as a guy who buys Iles aux Grues 2-year cheddar by the 40 lb block, I can tell you we should all hope to see this cheese in a store one day soon!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Georgs Kolesnikovs, cheese-head-in-chief at CheeseLover.ca, is <\/em>the founder of Canadian Cheese Awards and The Great Canadian Cheese Festival.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time to bring the curtain down on another year and to recall the memorable Canadian cheese tasted during 2018\u2014with the help of friends in fromage. Plus an outstanding butter, one of several grass-fed butters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,96],"tags":[416,422,423],"brand":[],"class_list":["post-5864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-bites","category-cheese-love","tag-artisan-cheese","tag-canadian-artisan-cheese","tag-canadian-cheese"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5864"},{"taxonomy":"brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/brand?post=5864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}