Our new cheese for Christmas 2024

Borthwood is our soft white mould rinded cheese which contains a generous layer of truffle that sits through its middle.

We’ve been trialling the cheese for over a year now and it impressed the judges at the British Cheese Awards and the Artisan Cheese Awards in 2024, where it picked up three Gold medals.

Lovingly made by hand in the dairy, the cheese is sold at approximately 4 weeks of age with a further 4 week shelf life.

The cheese takes its name from the stunning Borthwood Copse which is a stone's throw away from us here at Queen Bower Dairy.

Available across the Island from Thursday 28th November. Check our list of stockists here

Aftercare

When you’re ready to eat it, Borthwood will benefit from being at room temperature for the flavours to emerge fully.

It is always advisable to only remove from the fridge the quantity that you think you will eat. If placing back in the fridge be sure to seal the cheese properly keeping the air off all of the surfaces.

We always recommend unwrapping our soft cheeses and placing them in your fridge, inside a sealed tupperware box. Open the lid daily to refresh the air inside. This allows the cheese and the mould on the rind to breathe.

About

First made in 2006, this naturally rinded soft cheese is made with pasteurised milk. It is blue veined and is sold at 3-5 weeks of age. It has an 8 week shelf life from its day of production. Being hand-made, the sizes have a minimum weight of 180g but are approximately 210g, some slightly larger some slightly smaller. When the cheese is sold at 3-4 weeks it has a relatively mild blue flavour but expect the IOW Blue to accelerate quickly so that by the time it is at the end of its Use By date, the flavour will be a lot more spikier than when it was young.

Being naturally rinded, it is covered in green, blue, grey and white moulds. These give the cheese bags of character and the variety of surface moulds that grow on the rind will make it stand out on any cheeseboard.

The cheese has been a multiple medal winner at the World, British and International Cheese Awards, most notably winning Best English Cheese at The World Cheese Awards and Best Vegetarian Cheese at the 2019 Artisan Cheese Awards in Melton Mowbray

Aftercare

Refrigerate your Isle of Wight Blue after purchase (6 degrees if possible) and remove from the fridge an hour before eating to allow the cheese to reach room temperature. Only remove from the fridge what you think you will eat in one go, and put the remainder straight back in the fridge. 

About

The Isle of Wight Soft is a soft white surface mould ripened pasteurised cheese first made in 2006. It fits nicely in between the brie and camembert brackets. It is sold between 2-4 weeks of age and has a maximum 9 week shelf life. When young this cheese has a firm textured, sharp lactic flavour. As it ages the texture changes to a softer paste with the flavour becoming more familiar to the taste of camembert.

Isle of Wight Soft proudly took the title of Reserve Champion at the 2019 British Cheese Awards

Aftercare

Refrigerators typically dry the air around them as they cool, so the best place to keep bloomy white rinded cheeses like the IOW Soft is in a sealed box in the fridge. Keep the cheese in its wrapper, but place in the box a slightly damp cloth that will maintain the humidity of the air inside. Lift the lid every day to allow fresh air in. This method should stop the cheese from drying out over time.

About

Gallybagger is an unpasteurised cheddar type that is 4-5 months old on average. We class it as a modern British hard cheese and it is made loosely to a cheddar recipe. It is pressed in modern Dutch Gouda moulds which give it its continental shape.

The 5kg cheeses age on locally sourced Lawson Cypress wooden shelves and these shelves help contribute to the moulds that you find on the rind and the subsequent flavours inside the cheese.

This is a cheese that is made all year round in small quantities of around 100kg a week. As a result, very little of it ever leaves the Island and the only places to find it are in the island’s local restaurants and delicatessens.

Aftercare

Just like with the IOW Soft, this cheese will survive best if it is kept wrapped away from the air and placed in the fridge in a damp sealed container. If the bare surface of the cheese is exposed to air then expect to see mould growth develop on the surface. This should be harmless to eat, but to be safe, best scrape it off. Again, remove from the fridge 1 hour before serving to allow the room temperature to bring out the flavour.

About

Available only in December each year, the Gallybagger Mature is a 12 month old Gallybagger that is released every year at Christmas and sold across the Island and from our shop window at the dairy. 

Being a year old, the flavour of this cheese is more intense compared to the younger 8 month version.

Expect the texture to be a touch drier too, a characteristic that occurs the older this cheese becomes.