Cheese of the Week: Cape Vessey

Amy picked me up a wedge of this cheese, and at first I couldn’t believe my eyes — the label said “FifthTwn Cape Vssy Goat Cheese” and I was convinced that this was either a case of massive typo, or (more likely) that it was a Welsh cheese.

In fact, it put me in mind of a night out, years ago, in a Quebec City bar, where we had gone to see the Watchmen. According to our tickets, the opener was a band called “Wepping Yile” but when they got up on stage, the singer had a few laughs about that. Turns out their real name was Weeping Tile — and the singer was a not-quite-yet-famous Sarah Harmer.

Years later, I saw Harmer at the Regina Folk Festival, and after her main stage show, she came and sat in the crowd — just a few feet away from me. I wanted to say hi, and ask her if she remembered the Wepping Yile incident, but I never worked up the nerve.

Anyway, as it turns out, the “FifthTwn Cape Vssy” has suffered a similar fate. I’m guessing there is a limited number of allowed character on the label printer, because a few seconds with Google has brought up the proper name of this cheese: Cape Vessy, and it’s produced by an artisan cheese company called Fifth Town.

Oh, and they’re not Welsh. They’re Canadian. They’re from Ontario — actually, and somewhat confusingly, they’re from Prince Edward County. They’ve even been profiled in the Globe and Mail.

The cheese, at first glance, looks a lot like some other semi-soft, washed-rind cheeses that I’ve sampled before — and the immediate smell upon was opening the shrink wrap was pretty reminiscent of pungent cheeses, like the Oka.

But the smell dissipated pretty quickly (although it stuck around on your fingers). And even Amy wasn’t scared off by it.

I thought this cheese would be a little softer, but it has a nice firmness to it — it was almost too firm to cut with this knife. The rind, although distinct from the ‘flesh’ of the cheese, was easy to cut through and didn’t deform the cheese underneath while pressing down — even with a fairly dull cutting instrument.

The soft colour of the cheese was pleasing to the eye — not too yellow, nor too white.

Amy took the plunge on the first bite. It was a pretty great cheese, actually!

As a goat cheese, it has an earthy flavour, very rich and ripe, but this cheese took that goatness and presented it in a very mild way. And although the smell, like I said, was initially pungent and stuck to your fingers, the flavour wasn’t overpowering. Rather, it was a very accessible variety of goat cheese.

The mild flavour did have a tendency to build as you ate it. And the firm texture became almost creamy in your mouth — spreading like a cream cheese, actually, if you let it linger, though you never would have been able to do that with a knife.

We enjoyed this cheese on rather plain stoned wheat crackers, which allowed the full depth and complexity of the flavour to come through. We accompanied it with Kilkenny beer — an Irish cream ale that I’m not normally that fond of, but which went pretty smoothly with this cheese.

If you don’t normally like strong cheeses, or goat cheeses, this would be a good introduction to the style. It’s distinctive without being overwhelming. A definite buy-again.

And, if you’re interested, Fifth Town is North America’s greenest dairy. It’s a LEED-certified Platinum, which is the highest level of environmental certification possible. It’s heated and cooled using a geothermal system, and at least partially powered by a wind turbine and solar panels. The cheeses are aged in man-made underground caverns, which are naturally cool and damp, rather than in a refrigerated above-ground room.

Actually, here’s another Globe and Mail feature — all about how environmentally friendly they are.

Good stuff — and good cheese.