Even Judy Schad, who makes the delicious Mont St. Francis at her Capriole dairy in Indiana, couldn't tell me why there are so few cheeses like it. Mont St. Francis is a washed-rind cheese made with goat's milk, and that category is exceedingly small.
I'm familiar with Clisson, a goat's milk cheese from France washed with brine and Sauternes; and with goat raclette, another French washed-rind wheel that local shops carry occasionally. I'm sure that a few novice American goat cheese producers are playing around with the format. But I can't, off the cuff, think of any other washed-rind goat cheeses with an established market presence.
Schad is no novice. She has been making cheese on her own goat farm since 1990 and making Mont St. Francis since 1994. She has altered the recipe throughout the years, switching to raw milk from pasteurized and reducing the cheese's size. Wheels of Mont St. Francis now weigh a little more than a pound, down from 2 or 3 pounds, a change that boosted the fragrant washed-rind character by raising the proportion of rind to paste.
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