Grading

Creating consistently excellent cheese is a science as well as an art, calling for expert attention to detail. Every month all our cheeses are meticulously graded by an external assessor, using a century-old grading scheme. In the space of a few hours our grading team will taste around 100 cheeses.

Using a cheese iron, rather like an apple corer, our graders carefully bore a hole into the centre of each cheese. The cheese is scored on flavour and aroma, body and texture, finish and colour.

No two cheeses will ever taste the same, and that’s the beauty of handmade cheddar. Natural variations occur for many reasons, like the time of year the milk was produced. We’re not necessarily looking for consistency in flavour, but we always strive for consistency in quality.

"It's the care you put into each and every step that is the difference between the good and the extraordinary."

Our range of clothbound cheese each have a unique set of flavour profiles, from brothy, to cows-breath, caramel complex to fatty. Our meticulous attention to detail at every step of the process means that much like continental affineurs we can make recommendations to ensure our customers can receive those traits from our flavour spectrum they most enjoy.

Mary Quicke attends every grading and tastes all our cheeses to make sure each new batch is as excellent as the last.