Overall this was a pretty successful and well-balanced board. There was good variety across the milk-giving-animal spectrum, with a soft suprabovine focus which yielded quite a sharp and tasty selection of cheeses. This led to horrendous flavour clashes with grapes, but good accompaniment by the fairly high-quality and good-value biscuit selection from Marks & Spencer. I’ll rate these cheeses in increasing order of tastiness.

Bottom of the pile was the M&S Pié d’Angloys. This is a rather pointless soft cheese. It’s smooth, rich, creamy but totally lacking in any sort of flavour, even when left out over geological timescales to warm. On bread or crackers of any sort, this was decent in a generic-soft-cheese way. Pié d’Angloys apparently fulfils a similar washed-rind niche to Epoisses or Langres but those cheeses bring a great deal more flavour to the party. There is definitely a place for mild soft cheeses on a board but to be honest a cheap and honest salt-of-the-Earth supermarket Brie wedge is probably just better than this.

The Ossau-Iraty made by Onetik (available from M&S) was a substantial step up. It’s hard to go wrong with a flavoursome hard sheep’s cheese. Joe has reviewed this cheese previously and argued it was worse than the standard M&S one. I am left salivating excitedly at the prospect that there’s an upgraded version substantially better than this. In my view cheeses of this ilk, Manchego being the most widely-known, are criminally underutilized: they have a distinctive and delicious savoury nutty flavour, are easy to eat in truly colossal quantities, and are great on most sorts of crackers as well as in delicious standalone doorstop wedges of ovine goodness. Be sure to leave them out of the fridge for long enough that they develop their full flavour.

Next up was the Probably Rachel Goat’s Cheese. What an exciting cheese journey this was. At the market, I had asked for the strongest goat’s cheese they could legally provide, and damn the consequences. The seller had raised a skeptical eyebrow, asked for proof of age, and warned me this one was quite goaty and strong. That is not an accurate description of this cheese, and I am not actually 100 % convinced it truly is Rachel, but I would nevertheless buy it again. This was a semi-hard, washed-rind goat’s cheese with a notable farmyard aroma but an unexpectedly mild and delicate flavour. Once I got over the disappointment that this cheese didn’t make me feel I was sucking on a whole goat (which is what I’d been anticipating for some days after purchasing it), I actually quite enjoyed it. The strong smell belies a subtle, mild taste which is sufficiently goaty to sate. Paired well with the milder cheese biscuits. This could be a good introduction to the Caprine Way, if you can overcome the strong scent which may be offputting to novices.

Perhaps several months of continuous cheese rating have left me jaded and cynical; perhaps 33 types of chocolate milk have seared and addled my tastebuds, but to retain my integrity as a reviewer, I have no choice but to say it: the Black Bomber Cheddar was underwhelming this time. This is a strong Cheddar so of course it was delicious, but it didn’t leave me gasping for breath while weeping tears of dairy ecstasy, which is how I remember previous Black Bomber experiences. I agreed wholeheartedly with Joe’s review, in particular the distinctive double taste surge of initially creamy flavour followed by the complex salty deliciousness of a mature Cheddar, but this wasn’t the Earth-shattering mature flavour I was looking for, even when allowed to warm for a prolonged period of time.

The pinnacle of the cheeseboard was Flower Marie, a ewe’s milk semi-soft cheese available from the market. I bought this because both people in front of me in the queue asked about “that English sheep’s milk soft cheese” and were handed these pleasing little bricks; I, still embittered that I hadn’t taken advice to load up on Bitcoin at $18k a few weeks earlier, didn’t want to miss out yet again so of course joined in. A massive windfall from speculating on decentralised finance would have been helpful given the hefty bill of £9 for this 200g cheese.

That said, while this cheese really is outrageously expensive, it did have the most complex, nuanced and interesting flavour of any cheese on this board. It has a genteel rosy rind and a snow-white interior befitting the wintery season. In appearance and texture it is similar to a rinded goat’s cheese; in taste and experience, though, it reminded me of Chaorce with a delicious sheepy twist. There was the same complex spectrum of textures, with a soft exterior dappling to a firmer, creamy core; the same flexibility of usage; the same all-round excellence. The overall taste is quite mild and sweet but with that distinctive sheep’s-cheese twang, which was a great addition to the flavour profile. While as a soft cheese this is eminently spreadable on crackers (though it didn’t pair well with grapes), I found that rather wasted the subtle and complex combination of flavours in this cheese. This was best just eaten on its own, slowly and thoughtfully, ruminating on the passion, dedication and craftsmanship of the sheep that made this. I wouldn’t buy this cheese every week, because then I’d go bankrupt, but as an occasional treat it is an excellent, complex and interesting cheese.

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