Is it possible for one of the world’s great cheeses to fly under the radar?
At least for this blow-in cheese-lover, the answer is definitely “yes”. As a lifelong caseophile, since moving here I have made a small study of the glories that are Irish cheeses. I read my bedside copy of the Sheridan’s Guide religiously, and regularly make a pest of myself sampling anything new that I find at the market.
After five years I thought I had a pretty good handle on the subject, until just before Christmas when I was putting together a cheeseboard for a neighbourhood party. I was smugly satisfied with my selections until the friendly woman behind the Sheridan’s counter at my local Ardkeen market suggested I try one more.
I have learned that when this woman recommends, I obey. And she didn’t let me down this time. She shaved a paper-thin sample off a large wheel with a stony grey rind. I put it in my mouth and instantly knew I was on to something special.
The texture was a little like that of a well-aged Parmigiano Reggiano – slightly crumbly with that distinctive crystalline protein pop. The flavour was more along the lines of a great Comté – nuts, butter, slightly meaty, tangy, even with an elusive hint of wildflowers, all unfolding gradually.
That was my introduction to Coolattin Cheese’s Mount Leinster Cheddar, a friendship I’ve renewed regularly since.
How I’d never heard of it before I’ll never know. After all, for the last two years it has been judged the best cheddar in the world at the World Cheese Awards. Before that, it had been twice chosen as the best Irish cheese at the same competition. Even earlier, it twice had been crowned the supreme champion at the Irish Cheese Awards.
Both the quality of the cheese and its relative obscurity are down to the meticulous care of Coolattin Cheese owner Tom Burgess. Operating from a small dairy farm in west Wicklow, just outside Tullow, Burgess controls his cheese every step of the way – from pasture to marketing. Because it is produced in relatively small quantities, it’s usually best found at dedicated cheese markets.
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Coolattin is in the heart of an area long known for quality dairying. The operation is a quick walk to Rathgal, a late Bronze Age stone fort built about 3,000 years ago, at least in part to protect prized cattle herds, Burgess says.
It was the quality of the grass here that indirectly led Burgess to cheesemaking. “Good grass means good milk,” Burgess says. “And if you have the milk right before you start, you’re well on your way.”
“I have complete control over the milk because they’re our cows, fed on our grass. It all comes from our farm.”
To take advantage of this, Burgess’s cheeses are made only from raw milk and only in the months that the cattle are feeding on grass – April to October.
Coolattin only sells two kinds of cheese and they’re made almost identically. The morning milking goes straight into cheesemaking, where after heating, setting, cutting and draining, it is transformed into the beginnings of cheddar, wrapped in linen to allow the cheese to breathe and ready to start ageing.
Burgess makes roughly 1,500 wheels a year, divided almost equally between the Coolattin Cheddar and the Mount Leinster. That’s almost twice his production of a few years ago, before he entered a farming partnership with a neighbour that over time has nearly doubled his pasturage and number of cows.
In fact, the only difference between the two cheeses is ageing. Coolattin is ready to be shipped after about a year, while the Mount Leinster is aged for at least 15 months and up to two years.
Tasted side-by-side, you can readily see the effect of time. The 12-month-old Coolattin Cheddar is a beautiful cheese, smoother in texture with a flavour that leans more toward flowers and citrus tang. The 15-month Mount Leinster is noticeably crumbly with more developed flavours of mushrooms and earth. That complexity is even more apparent in the 18-month Mount Leinster. And a sample cut from an even older wheel shows that distinctive protein crunch and yet more complexity.
Needless to say, none of Burgess’s cheeses have much in common with what you may know as cheddar. In fact, he says, when he started selling the cheese, some friends suggested he should avoid that name because it is so associated with bland supermarket cheese.
But it was the great artisanal English cheddars such as that made by Jamie Montgomery that inspired Burgess to make cheese in the first place, though he tweaked the recipe to include tricks from some great French cheesemakers.
“I also like Comté and Gruyere,” he says, “and those are lovely cheeses, but I think cheddar has more length in flavour and a greater complexity.”
Those in the know certainly agree. Burgess says he was surprised but not surprised by all of the honours his cheeses have won.
“It’s just unbelievable,” he says. “But in another way I’m not surprised, really. When I started making cheese I said I was going to make the best cheese in the world. This was 20 years ago and more.
“But I knew I could do it because I could see then that I would have full control from the milk going into the cheese vat, to the process and the maturing. I knew if I did everything right, I could do it.”
“I think we’ve kind of got the milk and the cheese part where we want to be. Now it’s just figuring out the marketing so more people know about us.”
