Although only in cheese infancy, Taliah – a clothbound sheep’s-milk cheddar from Quebec – already has a great deal of buzz. I recently received an e-mail with the subject line “Blindingly Good Cheese” from a colleague asking if I had tried this amazing new fromage. Then I heard that Toronto’s Nancy Peppler of Nancy’s Cheese (a specialty cheese shop) calls it a “best in show” kind of product.
Needless to say, expectations were high when my package arrived and I found myself looking at a large chunk carved off a 10-kilogram wheel. Clothbound cheddars, with their mottled, threaded rind, crumbly interior and rich, creamy tones, tend to evoke artisanal romanticism.
Taliah has a welcoming aroma that is clean and earthy. Made from unpasteurized milk (not raw but thermized, meaning it undergoes heat treatment but not at high temperatures as in the pasteurization process), the wheel is aged 10 months to a year. I tasted sweet, clean milk notes woven with a gentle tanginess and a good balance of salt. The finish mirrored what I love in a good, aged sheep’s-milk cheese – mellow, creamy notes that have complexity and length. The texture clinched the deal, crumbly but not dry. Taliah had a smooth richness in each bite, with the added bonus of those crunchy tyrosine crystals one finds in a Parmigiano-Reggiano.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Globe and Mail
