An occasional discourse on the joy that is Cheese! Issue 1. February 2008

Our star cheese in December was clearly our Colston Basset Blue Stilton, it went down so well we intend to keep it as a stock cheese. But if Stilton was our star in December, our Gorwydd Caerphilly was clearly the star in January. We only managed to get 4 kilos at the end of December and once people had tasted it, they rushed back for more. If you have had Caerphilly before you probably had the dry, crumbly cheese sold in supermarkets in the UK and made by the big cheddar factories (they started making it in the 1940's as a way of improving their cash flow - it matures much quicker than cheddar).

Our Caerphilly is the only one made on a farm in Wales and it is so different - dry and slightly acidic in the centre, softer and more creamy around the edges with lemon and grassy flavours. It went down so well, we have ordered 2 more full cheeses which will be with us at the end of February. We are also expecting some Cheddar from the Isle of Mull in Scotland and some Cheshire cheese from Appleby's farm near Whitchurch in Shropshire. Cheshire is the oldest recorded British cheese (going back over 1000 years) and it is thought that the recipe was brought over by the Romans.

But the Cheese Club is about much more than just British Cheese, we are Passionate About Real Cheese from all over Europe. So how do we define Real Cheese? There is no dictionary definition but to us Cheese gets its personality from the land, just like good wine. Climate, soil, altitude, local traditions and taste all add to the individuality of Cheese. Real Cheese can be made in small dairies, to local traditional styles, close to where the milk is produced (usually even on the same farm).

It can be made from BIO (organic) or unpasteurised milk, by family members who milk the family animals themselves. Above all it is a living product, Real Cheese will undergo change from the day it is made, maturing and developing and quite often throwing up some surprises along the way. Our Caerphilly improved noticeably during the 3 weeks we had it.

January we have been very busy developing the web site as well as planning our cheese selections for the coming months. Our tasting pack this month consists of 4 BIO Cheeses, all from St Gallen and Graubünden as well as a BIO fruit bread from the village of Santa Maria. It has been a real pleasure visiting these out of the way dairies and villages - we hope you enjoy them as much as we have!  

As I write this we are also choosing our February tasting pack which will consist of 4 Farmhouse Cheeses from Ireland. The star is Coolea Extra Mature from Macroom in County Cork. A golden coloured hard cheese matured for at least 12 months, the overriding flavour being butterscotch & caramel. This cheese won the Best Irish Cheese at the British Cheese Awards last year and we are very proud to be able to bring it to Switzerland.

A common question we have been asked is "How to best store my cheese?" Our cheese is wrapped in a special cling film that allows the cheese to breath slightly. We are obliged by Swiss Regulations to give a "best before" date of 2 - 3 weeks after cutting. We have experimented with this and even our mature Cheddars have survived for nearly 2 months in the fridge after cutting - if anything, they improved! Remember, cheese is a living product, it will not go "bad" 3 weeks after cutting, but in a worse case scenario it may start to deteriorate.

Some rule of thumb guidelines to help you get the best from your cheese:

• Keep cheese in the salad compartment of your fridge (don't let it get too cold!)
• Take it out of the fridge 2 - 3 hours before serving to allow it to get to room temperature
• Soft cheese will deteriorate quicker than hard cheese
• If you have had some hard cheese in the fridge for a month or more, consider opening it and re-wrapping. Once you have opened it, if it is "sweating" at all, wipe dry with kitchen paper, put a piece of cling film over the cut surface to stop it drying and re-wrap the whole piece in greaseproof paper.

Finally, if you have any requests for your favourite cheese please let us know and we will try to source it and be sure to share any tips about cheese in general: news stories, new products, recipes and serving suggestions. You can get in touch on the contacts page by e-mail or through our Guestbook where you can leave some "Cheesy Feedback". We look forward to hearing from you!