British Cheese Awards crowns Yorkshire blue cheese supreme

The results of the 19th British Cheese Awards were announced at the City Hall in Cardiff. On the eve of the Great British Cheese Festival and signalling the beginning of British Cheese Week, the star of the show was a Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Blue made by Wensleydale Dairy Products, Hawes, Yorkshire, UK. The blue cheese was selected from a field that included  included over 750 vegetarian cheeses, over 200 raw milk cheeses, nearly 110 organic, 82 blue and just under 200 goat and ewe’s milk creations. A panel of cheese experts, food writers, chefs and gastronomes had previously assembled on 31 August to consider more than 900 entries from nearly 200 British and Irish cheese makers.

The British Cheese Awards were established in 1994 to raise the profile of British cheese and create a recognised symbol of excellence for all British cheeses, according to the organisers. The supreme champion, Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Blue, was also the winner of 2012 best blue cheese at the awards. The creamery at Hawes in Wensleydale have been making cheese and winning awards for over 100 years and recently created the Real Yorkshire Wensleydale brand to help protect the provenance of traditional Wensleydale, like the blue Wensleydale. It has an unusual but attractive, dry grey “snake skin” crust, wrapped in a bandage pierced with small holes. A densely compact slightly dry texture that soon becomes almost velvety in the mouth, with well-spread threads of silvery blue that melt in the mouth releasing a spicy but surprisingly mild blue tang that hints of cocoa.