Carmelis Alpine Goat Cheese Artisan

This is a Kelowna must-​do. We met some happy goats and scratched behind their ears, tasted a huge selection of cheeses, bought nearly every cheese, and walked out the door licking delicious goat gelato.

Walk through the goat smell and you will eventually arrive at the amazing cheese shop where they let you taste every single cheese they make for 2 $…and it’s free if you buy cheese at the end (spoiler alert: you totally will). And then there’s the goat cheese gelato!!! Oh man! Delicious! Salted caramel, pomegranate, hazelnut, key lime flavours just to name a few… all of which are mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Neat experience, highly recommended to add a bit of variety to a wine tour. Cheese tastings are only $ 3.00 and include about 8 samples. Not much opportunity to interact with the goats but you can see they have a nice habitat. The cheese available for purchase is a great price, much better than in the store, and they offer ice packs for travel. Nice touch!

My lady and I visited here by a recommendation from our local friends. It was a very neat location up a winding hillside road with great views of kelowna. I always enjoy watching/​listening to funny little goats. We received a cheese tasting from a knowledgeable young lady and learned a thing or two on the process cheese production and bought some delicious cheese to bring back to the States.

* 1200 Goats *
OK, there weren’t 1200 goats, but this is review 1200, so I thought it should be a special place. This boutique goat dairy fits the bill.
A bit south of Kelowna up some winding roads this dairy greets you with a mountainside filled with goats roaming around. Wandering down to the tasting area we stumbled onto a barn that had two very cute baby goats that were not out and about. Cute:


After entering the tasting area we were impressed by the number and variety of goat cheeses they had available. Amazingly for the reasonable tasting fee of $ 2 (refunded if you make any purchase) you get to sample about 20 cheeses. What selection!
They take goat cheese seriously here by using traditional production methods and add no preservatives or additives. They don’t use any stimulation processes either — so the various cheeses are all given the natural time they need to grow and mature. They don’t feed their goats any hormones or food additives either. These seemed like some happy goats!
The tasting started off with the simple chevres. They had a very subtle creamy flavour that demonstrated the purity of the process and care of the goats. Among the chevre my favourite was the dill and onion version. The Herbes de Provence version was a close second.
The feta was a creamier version that had a pleasant mouthfeel. They also had a labane which had all the characteristics of a good homemade cream chese.
The Moonlight and Heavenly cheeses were classic soft-​ripened goat cheeses. Of the two I leaned a bit more towards the Heavenly, as it had a slightly more complex flavour and texture.
They had two ash coated cheeses — Misty and Picollo. Both were starting to get creamy as they were ripened and had a nice sharp note to them.
They offered a variety of hard ripened cheeses made from raw goats milk. The highlights included a gruyère. I’ve never had a goat milk gruyère before, and I quite liked the unique flavour the milk imparted with this technique. The smoked carmel was reminiscent of a smoked cheddar with some goat characteristics. Very unique. The lior had peppercorns and was coated with bay leaves to give a rich earthiness. The vintage was soaked in grape skins, which gave a tannic quality that combined nicely with the sharpness of aging.
But my absolute favourite of all of their offerings was the Goatgonzola. What a unique cheese. This was a Gorgonzola style with deep blue veins and a phenomenal sharpness from the aging process. This was the winner for me, and the one I got to bring back and enjoy multiple times. Delicious!
After the cheese tasting was complete, they offered up gelato tasting. They had a variety of housemade goat milk gelato as well. The mango was particularly delicious.
Overall this dairy is a must-​visit when in Kelowna. I’ll be back on any future trips through the area for sure!

So cute!!! Delicious… do the cheese tasting and try the goats milk gelato. The young lady that was taking care of us was a delight! !

I live 5 minutes away from this farm, how lucky am I? We take full advantage of buying local and love taking a quick trip there to indulge in a cheese tasting. There is a wide variety of soft and hard cheeses that even people who are not goat cheese connoisseurs would enjoy if open to trying a few!

Staff was quite pleasant.
The goat’s milk gelato is something to try. I still prefer regular gelato and ice cream. Chocolate Hazelnut was the best out of the four we tried: strawberry, full cream and chocolate chip, and salted caramel. Salted caramel came in second.
Many different cheeses to try. The soft yogurt cheese was quite yummy. Most of the cheeses actually have very little «goat» flavour.

Kelowna’s little gem and now I know the locals rave about this place. First of all, it’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s nestled almost inside a forest. When I arrived I saw a few goats roaming on premise. I sampled all the cheese before I bought. They were all very tasty so I hard time choosing. In the end, I got the gouda, cheddar and the chevres. Thank goodness it didn’t have the goatiness taste to it. I was suprise by how yummy the goat’s milk gelato was. It was lighter than the regular gelato and had a nice tang taste to it. I had the pistacchio and the mango flavour.
I even took pictures with a baby goat. He was really adorable even though he was trying to eat my hair!
I think Kelowna is well known for their wines and now for their goat cheese farm too! A cool place worth visiting.

This place was so cool! I’d go here all the time if I lived in Kelowna! They have such an interesting history and the tour is a lot of fun. It involves cheese tasting too. Sure I’m not a fan of all of their products, but some of them are really good. I really liked their chevre and the feta! You couldn’t taste too much of the goatiness. The people there are really knowledgeable about their products.
Also, an honourable mention to the goat’s milk gelato! It’s soooooo delicious! So creamy, but not quite ice cream. The goat flavour isn’t strong at all but just light enough to be interesting.
This is definitely not to be missed on a trip to Kelowna.