Cavendish Goat
Floral and delicate, with a creamy breakdown under the rind.
- Unpasteurised
- Goats' Milk
Currently maturing, why not try Apatha instead >
A semi-hard goats’ cheese, with a delicate flinty interior, contrasted by a herbaceous breakdown under the rind, and a flavour that intensifies with age.
This little round cheese is Martin and Nicola’s most recent creation. It is reminiscent of southern-French mountain goat cheese, with the milk acidified overnight before setting, then being gently ladled into moulds. Finally, it is dusted with vine ash on the outside before being matured for six weeks, during which time it breaks down slowly and the goat flavour intensifies.
Made by Nicola Robinson and Martin Gott at Holker Farm, in Cartmel, Cumbria, England.
More about this
Martin and Nicola use a non-intensive method of farming: their animals graze the rich fields of the Holker Estate Farm and are only milked once a day, making for a less-stressed animal and better-quality milk. Their cheese is made naturally using homemade starter cultures, to truly capture their terroir.
The coronavirus pandemic caused many farmhouse cheese-makers to struggle to sell cheese to their normal markets. Staffordshire-based makers of the brilliant Innes goats’ cheese decided enough was enough and it was time to retire. Martin and Nicola jumped at the chance to take on their herd of goats and move them up to Cumbria. The herd had been bred along the rare Golden Guernsey breed for 30 years, specifically to produce fabulously rich and good quality raw milk – perfect for cheese-making – and would suit feeding off the land as Martin and Nicola move towards a more sustainable extensive farming system. Overnight they had to develop a cheese to go alongside their sheep’s milk cheeses. Their first development was Holbrook, a hard goats’ cheese because of the pandemic, hard cheeses being more stable, and thus not as time-sensitive.
In late 2020 they decided to make few trial batches of a type of goats’ cheese rarely seen in the UK. They called it Cavendish Goat. Most goats’ cheeses tend to be fresh, young and light ‘lactic’ cheeses, but Cavendish Goat is a supple, semi-soft cheese that walks a perfect line between exhibiting those fresh-acidic flavours often found in goat cheese, but nicely offset by richer, sweeter rustic undertones towards the ash-dusted rind.
It is named after the Cavendish family who own the Holker Estate in Southern Cumbria because it was they who took a chance with Martin and Nicola 15 years ago and rented them a couple of fields – giving Martin and Nicola their first opportunity to farm by themselves and establish their business.
Interested to know more? Read this interview with Martin Gott or this feature on Holker Farm in 2008.
Weight: 1 x 190g cheese.
This product will have two weeks’ shelf life from the date of delivery. Conveniently, at checkout you can choose a delivery date well in the future if you would like your cheese delivering for a specific event.
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