Making soft cheese the hard way

The Westcountry’s reputation for producing fine artisan cheeses could grow even stronger – from cheeses made by Julie Wing at her Blackdowns farmhouse .
Three years ago, Julie and her husband decided to sell their house in Cornwall and become farmers. They bought Higher Berehill near Churchstanton and started raising pigs, mountain sheep and chickens. Julie’s parents were farmers, now retired, but that tenuous farming experience was all that either of them could draw on. Julie had run a jewellery business in Cornwall and her husband Fred’s was in garage doors – in Essex.
Julie explained: “When we first came here I started by simply using a local farmer’s milk to make my own cheese in the kitchen – ‘The Good Life’ style. I like Camembert so my first effort was a soft cheese.
“It tasted good so I enrolled in an AB Cheesemaking course run by Chris Ashby at Reaseheath Agricultural College. After that, I added two more cheeses to the range – one ash-coated (the ash is edible!) and a cider-washed cheese which won the Gold Award at Bath.”
From these humble beginnings the enterprise grew quickly until Julie was making 300 cheeses each week, marketing them through wholesalers and Churchingford Community Shop. The Blackdown Hills Cheese Company Show caught the eye of the BBC’s Countryfile programme last year when Julie Wing was filmed at work in her dairy
Now, after a short period of closure, Julie has just taken delivery of brand new equipment for her newly refurbished dairy to move the business up a gear. “I’m thinking of possibly taking on someone to train in cheesemaking and would like to develop a presence at Farmers’ Markets,” she said. “Everything that goes into these cheeses is local, we use the whey as pig-feed and the boiler is fired with logs from our own land.”
You might look out for The Blackdown Hills Cheese Co. at Wellington’s Food Fair in September, taste the cheese and find out how to live the dream.
Gill Paltridge