We had visitors from The Netherlands where they have some absolutely cracking cheeses – see Old Beemster.

I wanted to give them a flavour of what we can offer in this country, and accordingly I bought some Bosworth Ash Log, some terrific Stinking Bishop…. and then some of this – Winslade – which was new to all of us.

It looked fabulous, creamy, oozing, unctuous; and when we came to taste it it didn’t disappoint. I wasn’t surprised to learn that in 2013 Winslade won the Best New Cheese Award; and in 2016 a silver – also at the British Cheese Awards.

Winslade is a new cheese, the younger, milder brother of Tunworth, and the love child of a vacherin and a camembert.

Where the vacherin comes in a spruce tub, Winslade has a spruce collar which gives it a slightly woody taste. But on the other hand, Winslade is matured in the same way as a camembert, in geotrichum (a type of fungus) moulds.

Produced at Hampshire Cheeses, near Alton in Hampshire, Winslade was conceived by an Australian cheesemaker, Stacey Hedges, and a local cheesemaker, Charlotte Spruce.