Cheese: Romelia

"People come to Saltspring Island to get a life, not to get a job,” jokes David Wood, owner of Salt Spring Island Cheese Company.

Luckily for food-lovers, Mr. Wood and his wife Nancy are exceptions to that rule. Once proprietors of a notable gourmet shop in Toronto, they moved to the West Coast in 1990 and began making cheese. It's difficult to miss their eye-catching chevres in the cheese case, artfully packaged with edible flowers or fresh herbs. This year the Woods expanded their varied selection to include a copper-coloured, washed-rind goat milk cheese named Romelia.

Named after Rommy, an employee with fiery red hair, Romelia is a mixed-rind cheese. A blend of cultures is added into the milk: geotrichum candidum (which creates a white, bloomy mould) and B. linens (which give the cheese its reddish colour and powerful aroma). Together they create a beautiful, mottled exterior that is moist, sticky and slightly granular in the mouth. The aroma is friendly but full, sharp and in your face.

At peak ripeness, the pale paste is soft and moist with small scattered eyes (holes) throughout. It has a dense and somewhat pliant quality that coats your mouth with an intense, savoury flavour and smooth finish. Younger and firmer versions of Romelia are still tasty, but they lack the same pungent aroma and rich flavour.

Smoothness is inherent to goat milk, making it ideal for creating fresh and soft cheeses. The fat particles are much smaller than in cow's milk, so if you leave a jug of goat milk on the counter, you won't get the thick layer of cream rising to the top; the fat particles remain suspended in the emulsion. For chevres, says Mr. Wood, “all you really have to do is squeeze out the water and concentrate the fat.” Your tongue can't discern the tiny fat molecules and all you experience is an exceptionally smooth texture.

To help preserve the flavour and quality of their goat milk, Salt Spring Island Cheese Company uses the “low and slow” method of pasteurization – heating the milk to 63 C for 30 minutes, rather than 72 C for 18 seconds. This method does less damage to the fat globules of the milk. Higher heat can break the fragile globules and intensify the stronger, tangy nature of goat cheese.

Romelia, as any brand-new cheese, is still being tweaked. Mr. Wood says that due to the many factors that influence cheese production, “the challenge of any cheese maker is not making a good cheese once, it's making a good cheese time and time again – consistency”

You'll want to follow the Woods' quest for perfection with some serious taste testing of your own.

Sue Riedl studied at the Cordon Bleu in London.

On the block

Origin Saltspring Island, B.C.

Producer Salt Spring Island Cheese Company

Owners David and Nancy Wood Cheese maker Julie Kimmel

Milk pasteurized goat

Type soft, bloomy, washed-rind, exterior ripened

Shape 180-gram wheel

Distributor Provincial Fine Foods, Salt Spring Island Cheese Co.

Availability

British Columbia: Thrifty Foods