Brie de Meaux
Made East of Paris, this is the original French unpasteurised farmhouse Brie. Soft and creamy with a lingering taste.
Delice d’Argental
This soft hand-worked vineyard cheese from Burgundy is enriched with fresh cream during its production. Its delicate smooth paste is covered with a thin rind and a light white coat. The interior is velvety and mellow.
Fougerus/Le Fougeru
Fougerus is a Coulommiers style cheese, made in the Isle de France, close to Paris. The cheese is wrapped in bracken or fern (fougere) which adds hints of an earthy, dried grass aroma. The cheese is supple, runny when ripe. It matures for 5 weeks. Unpasteurised, cow’s milk.
Grès des Vosges
This washed rind cow's milk cheese is small but powerfully intense with a distinct flavour and aroma. Produced in Alsace, the soft cheese is decorated with a fern leaf. Cherries from the local area are used to produce a Kirsch, which is used in the maturation of the Grès des Vosges, intensifying the flavour and creating a fruity aroma.
Sharpham
Sharpham is a Coulommiers type cheese. A soft, surface-ripened cheese made from unpasteurised Jersey cow's milk at the Sharpham estate near Totnes in Devon.
Stinking Bishop
A pasteurised cow's milk cheese made by Charles Martell at his farm in Dymock in Gloucestershire. The cheese is matured by washing the rind with a perry, which helps to give a rich, powerful flavour. Stinking Bishop is the name of the variety of pear used, which in turn was names after the chap who bred the Stinking Bishop or Moorcroft pear many years ago.
The Stinking Bishop is said to be based a cheese once made by Cistercian monks in the village of Dymock and is similar to the famous French Epoisses which has been banned from the public transport system in Paris. Although it’s aroma is pungent the flavour is delicious, and not as strong as it’s aroma or name suggests.
Tunworth
This unpasteurised soft, mellow tasting cheese with a thin bloomy rind was awarded Supreme Champion at the British Cheese Awards 2006. Tunworth's almost melting edges cling to the fudgy centre with the rind giving a non-invasive taste or aroma. This cheese is considered a great leap forward for British cheese making, taking on French styles of cheesemaking but with a distinctly English edge. Not as nutty or earthy as a Camembert, it's best eaten when matured for around 5-6 weeks.
Waterloo
Waterloo is made with unpastuerised Guernsey milk, originally from a herd of cows on the Duke of Wellington’s estate, hence the name. It has a white rind which, when opened reveals a yellow interior, an oozing texture under the rind and a slightly firmer, curdy consistency in the centre. Where the cheese is runnier in texture it has a buttery and slightly salty flavour, which is balanced by the slightly more acidic centre.
Langres
A strong, spicy, orange-brown cheese shaped like a sunken drum, from the Champagne region. Its paste is rich and creamy and has a pungent aroma. The cheese is ripe when the hollow moves to the other side when the cheese is turned upside down. Marc de Champagne or brandy can be poured into the hollow, after pricking with a fork, and the cheese flamed like a Christmas Pudding for a little theatre at the table.
Raclette
Raclette, which dates back to the middle ages, is best as a melting or cooking cheese. Traditionally a whole cheese is halved, and the cut edge placed in front or a fire, and the melting edge scraped away. (The name comes from the French verb, racler – to scrape.) Alternatively, a raclette grill is popular for supper parties.
Vacherin Mont d’Or (when in season)
Unctuous cow’s milk cheese from the French/Swiss border. Mild and creamy and sealed with spruce bark which imparts a faintly resinous tang to the cheese. Only made in the autumn when the cows come down from the high summer pasture. Legend has it that these cold winters made it impossible to deliver milk, so this ultra creamy, runny cheese was made at home. It was so runny that the band of spruce was placed around it to prevent the rind from cracking.
Durrus (Semi-soft)
A washed-rind unpasteurised cheese made by Jeffa Gill in County Cork, south west Ireland. The texture is soft and creamy, with a mild and delicate flavour when young, which becomes stronger, fruity and earthy on ripening. Durras has won Best Irish Cheese at the British Cheese Awards.
Morbier (semi-soft)
Morbier is named after the village of its origins in Franche-Comte. The method was created in the 19th century, as a way of using up the surplus curd form make the large Comte wheels. Leftover Comte curd from the morning milking on during the winter months was covered in a layer of ash to prevent a rind forming, until the afternoon curd was laid down. Although some theories say it was invented as a way of separating the evening milk milks from the next day’s morning milk. Either way, it has largely been replaced by a vegetable food colouring in many modern versions of the cheese, from one batch of milk. Most Morbiers are now made from pasteurised milk, although some raw milk versions remain, labelled lait cru.
The cheese is elastic and springy, with a pungent aroma and a sweet fruity taste. Creamery produced Morbiers are blander, but are an excellent meting cheese, and can be used in a similar way to a Raclette.
