Yoredale Blue

The Spence family have farmed in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales since 1953, initially milking just 20 Dairy Shorthorn cows. Three generations later, Ben Spence, along with his wife Sam, has restarted traditional cheesemaking in the area.

After attending a cheese-making course at The Courtyard Dairy, their first development in 2019 was a traditional Wensleydale (called Yoredale – the old name for Wensleydale), cloth-bound, made slower and gentler than its modern industrial counterparts.

In their quest to make a traditional Wensleydale, researching old-recipes and folklore, they found lots of references to a ‘Wensleydale Blue’.  These cheese were made in wheels before the advances of cheese-making techniques such as pressing, acidification, cleaner environments, tighter textures, and uniform and sealed rinds, that would have meant that the cheeses blued naturally.  They were said to be some of the finest cheeses around: ‘An epicure’s delight’ (1767).

Using this style for inspiration, they decided to create a modern Wensleydale blue without relying on natural moulds and inconsistent spontaneous blueing.  They combined their traditional Wensleydale recipe with modern-day blue-cheese-making techniques (the addition of tried and tested blue spores, and piercing at 3, 4 and 5 weeks to allow the blue to grow).  Once the blue has formed, this cheese is then matured for another two weeks (three months in total) for the blue mould to break down the texture of the cheese until it is smooth and soft, with a mellow blue spiciness.