Featured Cheese - April 2011

St. Nectaire hails from the Auvergne region of France, which is almost right in the middle of the country. Auvergne, which was once covered with active volcanos, has a demanding climate. In the winter the land is covered with deep snow. And when summer comes, it brings high temperatures. Although this sounds grueling, the weather is not only ideal for wine-making, but also for cheese-making. St. Nectaire cheese smells like a very ripe nectarine. It has a fruity aroma, rich texture and a sweetness of flavor we’ve not found in any other cheese.

Sage Derby is a vegetarian cheese made from cow's milk. In the seventeenth century, the custom of adding sage (a herb valued at the time for its health-giving properties) to Derby cheese was born. These days, the cheese is blended with spinach juice and dried sage.

Double Gloucester is a traditional, unpasteurized, semi-hard cheese which has been made in Gloucestershire since the sixteenth century. Records show, however, that Gloucester was known as early as the 8th century. The hard, natural rind has some gray-blue moulds and bears the marks of the cloth in which it is matured. Cheese merchants used to check the rind's robustness by jumping on it with both feet to test it! If the rind didn't crack, the cheese was safe to travel. The full-cream, double milking sessions milk used to make Double Gloucester gives it characteristic, rich, buttery taste and flaky texture. It is firm and bitable, like hard chocolate. Not as firm as Cheddar, it has a mellow, nutty character with an orange-zest tang and a hint of onion.