The following is from Gerb's column from this week's SNJ (Nov 14).

It must be the awards season as following on from the World Bread awards, covered in this column a couple of weeks ago, the World Cheese awards announced their results this week.

It is a massive event with a huge number of entries and was held in Bergen in Norway. Amazingly, considering the sheer number of cheeses entered, two winners will be represented at the farmers’ market this week.

White Lake Cheeses won Best Goat’s Cheese in the world for Rachel, a semi-soft unpasteurised goat cheese with a smooth texture and sweet, medium flavour.

As she matures, Rachel is washed regularly in a brine solution – this gives the artisan cheese a dusky rind, and the occasional orange and yellow spots. Rachel is the namesake of Pete’s friend who, much like the cheese, is sweet, curvy and just a little bit nutty!

They also won a Gold medal for Sheep Rustler, created using the same recipe as Rachel but with Sheep’s milk not goat.

Also on the list of winners were Brinkworth Dairy with their very distinctive Wiltshire Loaf winning a silver medal and their Brinkworth Blue claiming a bronze. Ceri is the fifth generation of the family to have made cheese on the farm. Starting in 2005 she revived the Wiltshire Loaf, a cheese who’s history is immortalised by Jane Austin in her book Emma.

Amazing though isn’t it?

Here we are in little old Stroud with world beating cheeses made by world beating cheesemakers on our doorstep every week.