Lynne McMullan and Cindy Menzies host the Black River Cheese booth at last year’s Great Canadian Cheese Festival.

More than 70 exhibitors expected at Cheese Festival on June 6 and 7

Growing up near Cornwall, there was no reason to visit St. Albert except for the cheese. One hundred and twenty years after the first factory was built, St. Albert remains little more than a collection of modest homes clustered around the intersection of Highway 7 and the South Nation river. Yet your correspondent’s family, and many others, regularly made the pilgrimage to St. Albert for the cheese—the white brick to take home, the squeaky curd to eat during the car ride back. St. Albert is nestled in the midst of one of the rare expanses of flat tillable soil in eastern Ontario. Once a lakebed, the fertile land now nurtures dozens of largescale dairy farms.

Formed as a cooperative in 1894 St. Albert provided a model for farmers to work together to move up the value chain—providing an alternative to selling milk as a commodity in a market buffeted by the ebb and flow of supply and demand.

Waves of consolidation saw many dairies, creameries and cheese factories across eastern Ontario close their doors through the middle part of the last century. But St. Albert’s cheese factory persevered. It wasn’t fussy cheese. Or terribly innovative. But St. Albert cheese evolved into a reliable and comfortable luxury— something worth spending a bit more for. Something worth driving to St. Albert for. Two years ago fire did what competition or consolidation couldn’t. An electrical component failed overnight on February 3, 2013. The cheese factory was destroyed.

It might have been the end. But the cooperative scrambled—managing to keep most of its 110 workers employed at satellite facilities until a plan for the future could be figured out.

In February, amid much pomp and ceremony, a brand new 76,000 square foot cheese factory was officially opened—signalling the rebirth of St. Albert’s cheese.

On June 6, Day 1 of the Great Canadian Cheese Festival in Picton, St. Albert’s is celebrating its new beginning by offering the first 1,000 visitors to the show samples of its squeakiest curd.

On Day 2, June 7, the first 1,000 guests will get a free grilled cheese sandwich from the folks behind Stonemill Bakehouse, Stirling Creamery and Cheddar & Ale Trail cheese producers.

Black River Cheese, with its own century-old story and tradition, along with Fifth Town Cheese will join 13 cheesemakers from Quebec, 16 from Ontario (including two new cheesemakers from the County) as well as one each from B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and P.E.I.

With 30 cheesemakers from across the country coming to the festival, Picton will be the centre of cheese nation two weeks from Saturday.

The Great Canadian Cheese Festival has also become vibrant showcase of innovative specialty foods—hot sauces, kombucha and kimchi, bread, mustard and a vast sea of preserves, chutneys and jams. More than 40 producers, each preparing local ingredients for the expanding and ever-inquisitive palates that seek out the Great Canadian Cheese Festival each spring.

Your favourite pair

There is scarcely a dish that is not made better by the addition of cheese. Some foods, in this scribbler’s view, are only made edible with a luxurious dollop of cheese sauce. And wine.

So what is your favourite cheese and wine combination? How about a fresh mozzarella and a crisp County Reisling? Or consider for a moment, a vibrant blue cheese and County cider? The folks at the Great Canadian Cheese Festival are helping wine writer Nathalie MacLean find out which pairing is Canada’s favourite.

You can add your favourite by visiting MacLean’s website at nataliemaclean.com or follow the action on Twitter at #CdnWineCheese.