MountainTop Bleu
- Producer
- FireFly Farms
- Country
- United States
- Region
- Maryland
- Size
- 2.25 ins diameter, 2.5 ins high
- Weight
- 8 oz
- Website
- www.fireflyfarms.com
- Milk
- Goat
- Treatment
- Pasteurised
- Classification
- Soft
- Rennet
- Microbial
- Rind
- Mold Ripened
Blue - Style
- Blue
Soft-Ripened (Brie-like)
According to FireFly Farms' co-owners Mike Koch and Pablo Solanet, the invention of this cheese was a happy accident.
The duo—who founded the Accident, Maryland-based goat cheese creamery in 2002—originally set out to make a pyramid-shaped cheese with an external blue rind. They inoculated the pyramids with spores for blue mold Penicillium roqueforti, but the young cheeses' proximity to a brie-style disc during its three weeks of aging quickly resulted in cross-contamination with Penicillium candidum mold. MountainTop became unexpectedly white and fluffy, with just a hint of blue—but Solanet and Koch loved the result, so they decided to enter it into the American Cheese Society Competition. It won a ribbon, and the rest was history.
Tasting Notes
While the blue is barely detectable in the white rind of this mold-ripened pyramid, its tiny hint of sharpness is a lovely complement to the cheese's bright flavors of grass and milk.
Pairings
Pair MountainTop Bleu with a rosé, a riesling, or a sauvignon blanc.
