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Cave Matured Cheddar – 12 Months Matured

£6.95£31.50

GOLD Medal at The Devon Show 2021

12 Months old. Matured in a natural cave (Gough’s Cave), Cheddar Gorge!

Our award-winning Cave Matured Cheddar has been matured within Cheddar Gorge’s natural caves. The influence of the cave environment has been remarkable in terms of texture and taste – our natural cave matured cheddar is smooth and well rounded. It has a soft but complex, rounded flavour.

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SKU: CAV000 Category:

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Weight 1 kg
Size

190g, 1kg, 500g

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The creaminess in comparison with Extra Mature and Vintage is notable and this cheese is unique in its complexity and character. While some of our customers love the cheese for its association with the caves and our heritage, just as many nominate it as their favourite cheddar on taste alone, making it an extremely popular choice. A natural cave is a unique and incredible environment. The constant temperature and humidity provide perfect conditions in which to mature traditional cheddar cheese. For hundreds of years, these conditions provided Nature’s own larder.

Seeing our cheeses maturing in Gough’s Cave is a sight you never really forget. It’s an impressive sight and feat. We are the first cheesemakers in living memory, to once more mature cheddar cheese within the Natural Cheddar Gorge Caves, and have been delighted by the success. The taste is indeed extraordinary!

These cheddars dry-out less; the moisture content is a critical component that defines the chemistry within the cheese. The cave allows the cultures and enzymes within the body of cheese to ‘move on’ more quickly, producing a unique, more complex cheddar flavour which is also influenced by the natural yeasts and moulds present within the caves.

Enjoying your Natural Cave Matured Cheddar…

The delicate and softer notes in this cheddar will benefit from not being overwhelmed by flavours that are too bold. Lighter style reds such as Bordeaux make a good pairing, but equally a white wine with character such as a Sauvignon Blanc would go very well. Lighter ales and even a crisp cider make good bedfellows.

A little more about our Cave Matured Authentic Cheddar Cheese

Cheese lovers taste the first authentic Cheddar for over 100 years

Published in the Daily Mail on 24 May 2007

Cheese lovers tasted the first authentic hand-made cave-matured Cheddar cheese for over 100 years today. However, the tradition of cave maturing – which gives the cheese a unique flavour according to the air in each darkened cavern – fell from favour at the beginning of last century due to cost constraints.

But Britain’s new-found appetite for quality food has boosted the cottage industry and now the Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company has begun cave maturing once more.

Yesterday a three-month old “medium” cheddar, matured deep in the quarter-mile long Gough’s Cave and made using original methods, was unveiled. Bob Smart, of Cheddar Caves & Gorge, said it was a proud moment for everyone involved in putting the historical jigsaw together.

He said: “This is the first time in over 100 years we have been able to produce authentic cheddar, using milk from cheddar cows, hand-made at the Gorge and then matured in the caves.

“In an age of plastic-wrapped and water-filled supermarket cheddar’s, it’s a real pleasure to see such well-loved classically British cheese being produced as it was always intended to be.”

The term “cheddaring” relates to a crucial stage in the cheese-making process where 18 inch by 6 inch blocks are cut, turned over and stacked up to four high to help drain off whey.

This authentic Cheddar is also pressed three times, where most mass-produced cheese is pressed just once.

“Cheddar is now hugely popular all over the world and hopefully now more people will be able to taste it as our ancestors would have.

“Cave maturing makes an incredible difference to the flavour. When cheddar began to grow in popularity the economics of production kicked in and the hand-made approach was lost.

“This may not be produced in massive volume but it is, for the first time, truly authentic.”

Currently (2019), The Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company has three talented cheesemakers, producing just 60 tonnes of authentic cheddar cheese a year, a fraction of the 150 to 200,000 tonne UK cheddar market! This artisanal product has won many awards including a Silver Medal for Cave Matured in the 2019 Global Cheese Awards! Husband and wife team John and Katherine Spencer are on a mission; to preserve and protect traditional Cheddar Cheese made in the village of Cheddar – the true home of the namesake.

Their 25kg cheese “rounds” are dressed cotton muslin cloth carried carefully to mature in Gough’s Cave deep within the splendid natural carboniferous limestone caverns in Cheddar Gorge. They are inspected and turned until they are 12 months old before being graded and selected for customers.

This Cave Matured authentic cheddar has a strong, complex taste yet is creamy in texture due to the high humidity of the caves. The environmental conditions significantly influence flavour too which can be directly compared to their ‘siblings’ matured at Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company’s Dairy Maturing Stores – just 500m down the road.

Starting off as a curiosity experiment back in 2006, this Cave Matured Cheddar has been a resounding success. John and Katherine were the first in living memory to once more, return cheddar to the famous natural caves and are delighted by the resulting cheese qualities. Both a science and an art, traditional cheddar has welcomed a revival in popularity – for all the producers. Thanks in part to The Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company’s step into the unknown.

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