Tintern is a blended mature creamy Cheddar cheese flavoured with fresh chives and shallots, made by Abergavenny Fine Foods. Typically produced in wheels of 2.25kg, it is sold in a distinctive lime green wax covering.

It takes its name from the village of Tintern on the River Wye, in Monmouthshire, Wales. The monks of Tintern Abbey are said to have farmed shallots in the abbey gardens in the grounds.Welsh cheeses

The name “Liptauer” is derived from the German word for the region of Liptov in Northern Slovakia, a county before 1918, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In the province of Trieste in Italy, the cheese is also known as Spuma di formaggio all’unghereseIf ready made, generally comes in small tinfoil packages and has a spicy, sharp taste.In Austria, it is a typical snack served at the Heuriger (Austrian wine-drinking Tavern).

Vienna Heuriger Liptauer cheese spread can be made of any soft cheesees. Cottage cheese, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, quark cheese, soft goat or sheep cheesepage 135are all suitable for this purpose. The cheese is mixed with local sour cream, butter, margarine or beerpage 135 and finely chopped onions. Spices are added, like ground paprika, fresh parsley, usually whole caraway seeds (or ground caraway).

Other recipes involve prepared mustard, Worcestershire sauce, capers or anchovy paste. Consumed on open sandwich, toast, crackers, bagels or as a filling in cold dishes like filled tomatoes, peppers,Gundel’s Hungarian Cookbook, Karoly Gundel. or hard boiled eggs.In Slovakia and Hungary there are many Liptauer recipes. All families have their own family recipe and they claim that the right  is like their own individual interpretations of the dish.

Serra da Estrela is a cheese from the region of Serra da Estrela, in Portugal. Its production has very rigorous rules and its delimited region is in the subdivision of the municipalities of Nelas, Mangualde, Celorico da Beira, Tondela, Gouveia, Penalva do Castelo, Fornos de Algodres, Carregal do Sal, etc.It is made of sheep milk, mostly during the months of November to March.

Its maturation period has specific norms and must last thirty days at least. According to its maturation it becomes creamy pouring out or thicker. It is a cured cheese from artisan work with half-soft paste, creamy, white or slightly yellow, uniform (without holes or just a few) obtained from slow draining of curdled-milk, after raw sheep milk coagulation, with Cynara cadunculus thistle.

The shape is a low cylinder with side camber and a little in the upper face, not having precise tacks. It shows a soft well formed rind, smooth and thin, with a uniform straw-yellow colour.

A Vacherin cheese is a cow’s-milk (French vache, “cow”) cheese. Two main types of French or Swiss Vacherin cheeses exist.

One is a soft, rich, seasonal cheese contained in a grayish-yellow blanched rind and called Vacherin Mont d’Or. Made from cow’s-milk in Switzerland or France, usually in villages of the Jura region (an origin that has been officially controlled since 1981), it typically contains 45 to 50 percent milk fat (in dry matter). It is marketed in round boxes of various diameters made of spruce. It is often served warmed in its original packaging and eaten like a fondue.

This cheese is made between August 15 and March 15, and is sold throughout France between September 10 and May 10.

The other Vacherin, a firmer cheese, is called Vacherin Fribourgeois. It is made in the Fribourg canton of Switzerland where Gruyère originates and has a slightly acidic, resiny flavor, with a varying strength depending on the age and type. It is also a basic component lending character to fondues (depending on the recipe). Vacherin Fribourgeois has Swiss AOC status with 6 varieties being available:

• Classic (aged: 6-12 weeks)
• Extra (aged: minimum 12 weeks)
• Rustic (aged: minimum 12 weeks, but up to 25 weeks (6 months))
• Alpage (aged: 12-25 weeks)
• Mountain (aged 9-25 weeks)
• Bio (Organic) (aged: minimum 9 weeks)

This cheese is made between September and April.

Vacherin d’alpage is made from the milk of cows pasturing in alpine meadows and hence has a much richer taste. Vacherin d’alpage are usually made in a cauldron over a wooden fire in some remote chalet on an alpine meadow and they are not easy to find in the trade. The older the vacherin gets, the stronger the smell of ammonia due to microorganism activity in the cheese.

Tamié is pressed and molded in the form of a flat wheel of cheese with slightly convex edge. It is distinguished by the saffron colour of the crust that, in the final aging process, is covered with a light white down. The creamy soft cheese is even in texture, but with a slightly firmer centre. About 400 kg is produced each day from the milk of cows from 8 farms in the valley. The monks market it in two styles:

• Petit Tamié” (550 g to 600 g) sold individually.
• Grand Tamié” (1.4 to 1.5 kg), with a thinner crust and softer, sold individually or cut

Unpasteurised whole milk is warmed to 34 °C.  Cultivated fermenters made at the abbey are added. This is then left to coagulate for about 90 minutes. The natural rennet is added to obtain the solids. When this is sufficiently firm, the curdle is cut using special knives, to separate the curds and whey. The time and the speed of the cutting regulates the size of the curds to that of a pea. The mixture is then left for 20 minutes to drain, then placed in moulds with small drainage holes and pressed by machine to remove any remaining liquids for about 4 hours. The whey is not wasted, but processed into methane which is used to heat the abbey’s hot water system.

The cheeses are removed from the presses and put onto pallets which are then immersed in a bath of salty water for 2 or 3 hours, according to the size. Salting has several functions: it affects the taste, crust formation and is a preserving agent. The cheeses are then ready to be matured in the cellar where they will lose some weight in accordance with the age-old tradition of the “Angels’ share”. Cheeses are aged in the vaulted cellars of the abbey where the temperature is maintained at 14 °C, with high humidity. They will be turned manually every other day. To maintain the crust and encourage the development of the mould on the surface, the cheeses are again bathed in brine and then rubbed and returned to the shelves to mature. The mould is naturally present in the cellar. When they have attained their optimum maturity, they are packed and labeled by hand. The label conveys important manufacturing information and the best-before date (about 45 days after packing).

Boursin is a brand of Gournay cheese. It is a soft creamy cheese available in a variety of flavours. Its flavor and texture is somewhat similar to cream cheese.Boursin cheese was first produced in 1957 by Fran̤ois Boursin in Normandy. Boursin is a trademark РBoursin cheese was at one time produced exclusively in Croisy-sur-Eure, France, by the Boursin company, a subsidiary of Groupe Bel, which purchased Boursin in November 2007 for 400 million euros. The cheese is also produced in the United States for North American distribution by Unilever.

Brillat-Savarin is a soft, white-crusted cow’s milk cheese with at least 75% fat in dry matter (roughly 40% overall), named after the 18th century French gourmet and political figure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. The cheese was created in the 1930s by cheese-maker Henri Androuet.

Brillat-Savarin is produced all year round, mainly in Normandy. It comes in 12-13 cm wheels and approximately 4 cm thick, and is aged for one to two weeks. It is also available as a fresh cheese (non affine) that resembles rich cream cheese. It is a triple cream Brie that is luscious, creamy and faintly sour. It goes well with medjool dates and also champagne. Because of its creaminess combined with its Brie aroma and slight sharpness, it has been described as “Dairylea for grownups” or “what Dairylea tastes like in heaven”.

Pairing with red wines is difficult, as any mushroominess or “moldy” taste will bring out the tannins of the wine. Brillat Savarin is also quite salty when ripe, which may disturb the taste of red wine. It does pair well with Pale Ale and Champagne. The carbonation wipes the fattiness from the palate and the malts enhance the creaminess of the cheese.The French cheesemaking company Rouzaire also produces an older Brillat Savarin under the name Pierre Robert. The extra aging time concentrates the proteins and salt in the cheese, resulting in deeper earthy flavors and more intense salty taste. Wheels of Pierre Robert are physically shorter (due to loss of moisture), yet creamier than the regular-aged Brillat Savarin.

Brie is a soft cows’ cheese named after Brie, the French province in which it originated (roughly corresponding to the modern departement of Seine-et-Marne). It is pale in colour with a slight greyish tinge under crusty white mould; very soft and savoury with a hint of ammonia. The white mouldy rind is edible, and is not intended to be separated from the cheese before consumption.The region in France that gave its name to this cheese (Brie) is, in the French language, feminine: la Brie, but French products take the gender of their general category; in this case cheese (le fromage) is masculine, and so Brie is also masculine, le Brie.

Brie may be produced from whole or semi-skimmed milk. The curd is obtained by adding rennet to raw milk and heating it to a maximum temperature of 37 °C (98.6 °F). The cheese is then cast into molds, sometimes with a traditional perforated ladle called a “pelle à brie”. The 20 cm mould is filled with several thin layers of cheese and drained for approximately 18 hours. The cheese is then taken out of the moulds, salted, inoculated with cheese mould (Penicillium candidum, Penicillium camemberti and/or Brevibacterium linens) and aged in a cellar for at least four to five weeks.

If left to mature for longer, typically several months to a year, the cheese becomes stronger in flavour and taste, the pâté drier and darker, and the rind also darker and crumbly, and is called Brie Noir (Fr: Black Brie). Around the Île-de-France, where Brie is made, people enjoy soaking this in Café au lait and eating it for breakfast. Over-ripe brie contains an unpleasant, excessive amount of ammonia, which is produced by the same micro-organisms required for ripening.