Cheesemonger's Special Selection

This month's selection takes us across The Channel to enjoy three fabulous cheeses from France. No Covid passport or quarantine required! Bring memories of summer holidays gone by to your cheeseboard with this delicious trio including Saint-Marcellin, Morbier and aged Comté. Bon appétit!


Saint-Marcellin - A small delicate cheese from the Iséùre region (Rhone-Alpes) of France, traditionally packaged for protection in a shallow terracotta dish. Ripened for three to four weeks, it is a cheese with intense creaminess, gentle earthiness and slightly fruity notes. Young Saint-Marcellin cheeses are firm and dense with little lactic tang and a mottled white exterior. With age this bloomy rind darkens with blueing and shades of yellow. The texture of the cheese becomes oozing and its flavour more yeasty. Saint-Marcellin can be baked in its dish and enjoyed warm on green salad or as a dip for crudité vegetables, cornichons and bread. It can also be served as a dessert, drizzled with honey and accompanied by fresh berries or cherries. Its velvety texture and creamy taste work well with tart fruits such as crisp apples, melon and grapes. Enjoy it alongside a Cabernet-Franc from the Loire or dry white Burgundy. Unpasteurised cow's milk / Traditional rennet.


Morbier - From the Franche-Comté region of France, Morbier is a distinctive cheese easily recognisable by the speckled black stripe running through its centre. Traditionally Morbier was made from two layers of curds (evening and morning) with a layer of ash between them to protect the curds overnight. Now Morbier is made from a single milking. Each wheel is cut horizontally and for decoration flavourless vegetal ash added before the cheese is re-pressed, brine washed, and matured for two to three months. Morbier has a deeply creamy flavour, milder than suggested by its aroma. It is slightly fruity in taste with a sweet, nutty finish. Like many Alpine cheeses, Morbier melts beautifully. It is also excellent alongside fresh green salad leaves and walnuts. Unpasteurised cow's milk / Traditional rennet.


Aged Comté - Comté is an iconic French cheese with a long history. It was one of the first French cheeses to receive AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) designation in 1958 (transferred to AOP in 1996) and with around 65,000 tonnes made each year, its production is the highest of all French AOP (Appellation d'Origine Protégée) cheeses. Comté is an Alpine-style hard cheese made in the Jura region from the unpasteurised milk of Montbéliarde or Simmental cows, each with a minimum of 1.3 hectares of summer grazing pasture and no silage feed during winter. Our Comté has been aged on spruce boards for 18 months, twice as long as the average wheel, for greater depth of flavour and a grainy crunch. It is buttery with hints of roasted hazelnuts. Comté is an extremely versatile cheese perfect for snacking, enjoying on a cheese board or for use as a cooking ingredient. It melts brilliantly in fondue, on top of soup and grated over asparagus. Sliced, it makes a hearty sandwich with rye bread, ham and cornichons, and it can also be used in sweeter dishes such spiced apple and pecan tart. It is well complemented by Jura wines from the same region or a glass of dry Spanish sherry. Unpasteurised cow's milk / Traditional rennet.