Beating out the national competition, three Vancouver Island cheese-makers swept brie and camembert awards at the 2011 Canadian Cheese Grand Prix in the “soft cheese with bloomy rind” category.
“B.C. is Canada’s most diverse food producing province, and regional specialties like Island cheeses are becoming mainstays in kitchens, markets, restaurants, as well as item number 1 on tourists’ shopping lists,” Minister of Agriculture Don McRae said in a press release.
Little Qualicum Cheeseworks’ Island Bries won the category, receiving accolades for taste, texture and the little wooden cheese boards on which Island Bries are sold.
Clarke Gourlay and Nancy Gourlay run Little Qualicum Cheeseworks and produce 100,000 wheels of Island Bries annually; their winning cheese was made from the milk of their own dairy cows.
The two other finalists in the category were Natural Pastures Cheese Co.’s Comox Brie and Comox Camembert.
More than 200 cheeses were entered in the 2011 Canadian Cheese Grand Prix, which is organized by the Dairy Farmers of Canada.
This the seventh time the competition has been held since 1998. A jury of seven cheese and culinary experts, chefs, authors, cheese-makers and cheese-lovers judged the entries.
Jenny Wagler