Focaccia, Burrata, Apricity: A Very Wedgewood Pizza
✍🏻 Written by: Michelle Webb | 🍷 Wine Pairing: Maggie Storer
I’m not a soft cheese person. There. I said it.
I love cheese—but give me a firm, nutty, aged wedge over anything bloomy or spoonable. Manchego. Clothbound Cheddar. A gouda with good crunch. That’s my wheel of choice.
So when Afton—our “wanna try this?” fairy—floated over with a piece of cheese, I hesitated.
Afton has a habit of gently disrupting your day in the best way. She flits through Wedgewood like a snack-slinging sprite, offering little nibbles from the cheese case to anyone in sight. A couple times a day, the Wedgewood staff becomes Afton’s favorite regular customer.
And that’s the thing about this place: when we fall in love with something, we want everyone to taste it. And boy, do we love a good conversion story. Someone comes in saying they hate blue cheese—and leaves with a wedge of Fourme d’Ambert. Someone else turns their nose up at Morbier—until they try a sliver of Coppinger and suddenly see the light. It’s not that we like saying we told you so—okay, maybe a little—it’s that we love introducing people to the versatility, beauty, and flavor of cheeses you’ll never find in the grocery aisle or you’d never pick on your own.
Afton handed me a bite of Apricity, a soft cheese that she knew might not be my thing.
I tried it and immediately thought: “This would be perfect on pizza.” And alas, here we are.
What Is Apricity?
Let’s start with the name. Apricity is an old English word derived from the term apricus, meaning “warmed by the sun.” And that’s exactly what this cheese tastes like—bright, comforting, gently funky, and completely unexpected.
Technically, it’s a soft-ripened, bloomy-rind cheese made by Alemar Cheese Company, an award-winning, Minnesota-based maker that specializes in grass-fed soft cheeses. Apricity is reminiscent of Brie or Camembert, but with more salt, more tang, and way less goo. I like to say it’s like ricotta that went to finishing school—fluffy, balanced, refined, and never soggy. Unwrapping it feels like unveiling a cheese cupcake.
“If you’re cooking from a memory, and you have a certain thing in your mind — what great pizza tastes like — you reverse engineer from that point. It’s giving yourself the freedom of what you want.”
Pizza Night at Wedgewood
After service, I couldn’t stop thinking about Apricity. I conferred with Chef Gordon: “Pizza?” We both nodded and cranked up the tiny oven to full whack. I grabbed burrata from the fridge, one enormous, juicy heirloom tomato, a fistful of basil, Calabrian chili oil, and a big square of Ideal’s focaccia.
I threw together an impromptu staff meal. Rubirosa Marinara served as the base. I sliced into the soft, downy round of Apricity, its bloomy rind giving way to firm, whipped layers that cut clean but softened at the edges. I tore open the burrata like a mozzarella piñata, letting its creamy, stracciatella core oozing across the dough in little puddles of dairy chaos. I finished it off with fresh, diced heirloom tomatoes, chiffonade of basil, and a drizzle of calabrian chili oil.
The result? A focaccia pizza that felt like Sicilian comfort food with wine bar elegance. Salty. Creamy. Spicy. Bright. The whole staff devoured it.
From Family Meal to Family Dinner Table
That Sunday, I made the pizza again—this time at home. Same focaccia. Same cheese. Same chili oil drizzle. And it was just as good, maybe better, surrounded by toys, spilled juice, and the soundtrack of bedtime negotiations.
What started as a staff snack turned into one of those rare weeknight wins: quick, satisfying, and 3-year-old approved. My youngest devoured a slice topped with prosciutto and asked for seconds.
Maggie’s Pairing: Chilled Red + Focaccia Pizza = Summer Magic
As a California native, this heat feels oppressive—but this year, I’ve decided to lean into it instead of trying to escape it. So I’m putting everything in the fridge, especially red wines.
Technically, all reds are chillable, but some are much more enjoyable than others when popped in the fridge for an hour or two. Chilling a red serves a few purposes, the biggest being that as the temperature changes, so does your experience of flavor—your taste buds perceive the wine differently. Lighter reds generally react best: fruity notes shine, and tannins soften. Heavier reds like Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot can feel a bit off-kilter when chilled, since they don’t usually showcase those bright, juicy notes.
Enter: COS Frappato ($32), a wine with a cult following from the Vittoria region of Sicily. COS is a cornerstone of Sicilian winemaking, with roots dating back to the late 1800s—right around the time phylloxera was devastating French vineyards but hadn’t yet reached Sicily (a story for another blog post). Frappato, often compared to Gamay, is characteristically light, juicy, and crushable. The vineyards sit on limestone layered under red clay, and COS lets the soil speak—producing wines that are delicate, earthy, and full of energy.
The COS Frappato is not just a great example of the grape—it’s a love letter to Sicilian terroir. It’s exactly the kind of wine I want to drink in July: chilled, ripe, mineral-driven, and an ideal match for something indulgent, like a slice of focaccia pizza topped with great cheese and high-summer tomatoes.
Swing by the shop and let us know, “I’m here for the Apricity pizza.” We’ll know exactly what you mean.
Now, onto the recipe.
Recipe
Apricity Focaccia Pizza
(serves: 2-3)
Ingredients:
1 thick square of focaccia
1 ball Siano Burrata, torn
4 oz Apricity cheese, sliced into rounds with a soft cheese knife
1 ripe tomato, diced, drained with a paper towel & salted
Calabrian chili oil or hot honey
Olive oil
Salt + pepper and any favorite pizza spices
Optional: fresh basil or parsley for garnish
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450°F.
Drizzle focaccia with olive oil and toast for 5–7 minutes until edges crisp.
Top with sliced Apricity, torn burrata, and tomato.
Bake another 5-7 minutes, until cheese softens & browns.
Drizzle with chili oil or hot honey. Finish with herbs and slice into it.
