Bluebell Falls - Co Clare
Some questions are easily answered. "There is a small waterfall just across the road from the farm," says Paul Keane, "on the Owenslieve River, and in April and May it is absolutely covered in bluebells. So, while the falls are only known locally as the Cascade, we decided to call the cheese Bluebell Falls."
It is a fanciful, sweetly poetic name, and the images of unabashed nature which it summons up are just perfect for a fresh goat's milk cheese which holds the organic symbol, one of very few Irish farmhouse cheese to do so. "There was no pressure to farm any way other than organically," says Keane, whose farm is covered by a REPS scheme, "so it was as easy to do it the organic way."
The Owenslieve cuts its way around and about Ballynacally, on the road heading out of Ennis, running south west around the coast, heading down eventually to Kiladysert and Kilrush. The land rolls and slopes gently, not too far from the waters of the Shannon.
Paul Keane knows the fields he farms like the back of his hand, pointing out internal drains and ditches as we clamber up to where his Saanen and Tangenberg goats were pasturing. He farms goats because he reckons the land simply wouldn't be suitable for cows. "I've been milking goats now for 10 years. My mother started it. Now we have 130 goats being milked."
The question which cannot be so easily answered, however, is this: how do Paul and Colette Keane manage, with a fresh goat's milk cheese which is sold when it is only 24 hours old, to capture such a magnificent flavour? The flavour of Bluebell Falls is astonishing, because one expects fresh cheeses, and especially fresh goat's cheeses, to have a very mild flavour. Yet here is a fresh log of cheese, white in colour, where the flavours are already composed and complete. It is a terrific cheese for eating or cooking. It is perfect with fresh tomatoes in a pasta sauce, and whipped with potatoes and spring onions it makes for a splendid mash. You could make any manner of classic cheese tart with it, and as an eating cheese it is sublime. Best of all, its mildness is not a compromise. It is mild because the cheese is sold so young. I can see slices of Bluebell Falls topping every piece of toasted bread in every composed goat's-cheese salad sold in the country's restaurants over the coming years, such is its accessibility.
Keane just shrugs when you ask how he manages it. Like many cheese-makers, I suspect he is somewhat reticent about analysing the process too much. Bluebell Falls has simply copied a style - the French chevre, or log - and its flavour has evolved. But while the cheese is stringently tested - it is classified as a fresh cheese and therefore undergoes exacting analysis - Keane doesn't like to examine how he gets such assured, complete flavours. Good pastures, happy goats, small-scale agriculture and a hands-on system are of course the necessary elements, but there is certainly an alchemy at work with Bluebell Falls cheese.
So far, the cheese hasn't travelled much further than the west coast, where Keane tirelessly drives it to various shops and restaurants in his own van - indeed, I first met him, by chance, in Clifden, on the day he was delivering to Eileen Halliday's Connemara hamper shop in the town. He drives it to Bourke's shop and Friday's Bistro in Westport, to the Lavazza restaurant in Limerick, to Durty Nelly's in Bunratty, among other destinations.
When he finds the right means of distribution, however, the cheese will begin to make its way eastwards.
The latest plans are for an aged goat's cheese, made in small rounds and matured for much longer, to complement the Bluebell Falls. Here is a cheese, and a cheese-maker, of limitless potential.
Bluebell Falls Organic Soft Goat's Cheese, Ballynacally, Co Clare. tel: 065-38024
Burren Gold - Co Clare
The big story this year at the British Cheese Show wasn't the cheeses that were there, but the cheeses that almost weren't there.
Jamie Montgomery, son of the family which makes Montgomery Cheddar - for many people the finest cheddar produced today - had entered one truckle at the show. Just as well he had sent it down to London, because a couple of days before judging time, a team of thieves stole every last mature Montgomery cheddar held in storage.
Six tonnes of cheese, matured for 16 months and worth £30,000, was filched overnight. The cheeses taken were those ready to be sent to the Neal's Yard dairy, Randolph Hodgson's wonderful shop in Covent Garden, and to Harrod's. Amazingly, this was the third cheese robbery in the UK in recent months, although the thieves have a long way to go to match a pair of Italians who were allegedly involved in 94 cheese hiests.
This subterfuge all seems a long way from the simple business of making cheese which Ben Johnson has been doing at Ailwee caves, just outside Ballyvaughan in Co Clare, for the last decade or more. But Johnson stole the show - walking off with both a gold and a silver medal in the Modern British Hard Cheeses category and, best of all, taking the medal for Best Irish Cheese.
I was one of the judges in the category of Best Irish Cheese at the show, and Burren Gold was a unanimous winner. What we liked about it was the completeness of the flavours, and the sinuous, pleasing texture. This is a terrifically enjoyable cheese, benefiting from the use of fine milk - Ben Johnson has been buying milk from the same farmer since he first began making cheese.
What is most surprising about the award to Burren Gold is perhaps that it is among the least known of the Irish cheeses, despite having been produced for 14 years. Most of the cheese is made as an added attraction at the splendid Ailwee Caves which Ben Johnson's parents run, although it is also available in selected outlets around Co Clare.
But Johnson's ambitions are extending. "The interest we have had following the win has been phenomenal," he says, "I never imagined that the competition was so important." Hopefully, this will allow Johnson to team up with a national distributor, and to increase his annual tonnage from the seven to eight tonnes he produces now.
As well as the plain cheese, there are also flavoured varieties. "We make chive and garlic, and black pepper, and there is also a smoked cheese, smoked by Peter Curtin of the Lisdoonvarna smokehouse. We make that slightly softer for the smoking, so it comes out almost like a port salut type," says Johnson. In addition there is a feta cheese preserved in olive oil, and fresh cheeses. I suspect Burren Gold won't remain a well-kept secret for too much longer.
Burren Gold, Ailwee Caves, Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare, tel: 065-77036.
Oisin Farmhouse Cheese
`We had a goat farm in Holland, but there are just too many rules governing cheese-making there," says Rochus van der Vaart. "And we have a passion for cheese and cheese-making. We want to create the cheese that you have in your mind, and not just another gouda. Our ambition is to make a range of cheese, and to make them in small amounts, each one different, with different potentials. It's not just cheese-making for money: we do this because we have to."
Rochus and Rose van der Vaart are atypical cheese-makers. Most farmhouse cheese-makers in Ireland make a single variety, which they may flavour in various ways. However, the van der Vaarts aren't interested in working like that. They describe themselves, accurately, as "cheese designers".
"We want to design cheeses, and then put them into small-scale production," says Rose, "but achieving big production is not our goal. We simply want to produce new cheeses."
They produce the delightful Oisin Farmhouse Blue Cheese, a rarity in Ireland as it is a blue cheese made with goat's milk. It comes from the herd of 40 goats which they farm, near Glen-o-Sheen, in Co Limerick, overlooking a spectacular valley which is home to the grand Castle Oliver. They travelled throughout the country before settling here, finding it the ideal place to run their altruistic and dedicated cheese-making operation.
They pasteurise their milk, and reckon the Oisin Blue can be eaten at two weeks, before the blueing develops, and that then one should maybe wait until about 10 weeks for the cheese to be at its best. It is a vivid, complex cheese, a fitting tribute to their unwavering commitment: "No talking - make cheese"' is what we say in Holland," says Rochus, and he and Rose compare their work to the act of painting. "A painter paints what is in his head, and never paints the same picture twice. That is what we are trying to do. What we taste is more than cheese, so everything is important. And, for us, it's nice to do what you want to do."
The current cheese they're developing is an organic cow's milk cheese, Glenogra, made with milk supplied by their neighbour, John Boohen, and it is as beautifully made as the Oisin. "We want to work with our neighbours to be able to develop our cheeses and make different varieties," they say. Their passion for cheese is matched by skill, and Oisin cheeses promise something radical, and delicious.
Oisin Farmhouse Cheese can be found in Sheridan's Cheesemongers, Dublin and Galway. For other distributors, contact Rochus and Rose van der Vaart, Oisin Farmhouse Cheese, Glen-o- Sheen, Co Limerick tel: 063-91528.