Price range: £7.50 through £14.00
Highmoor is an organic washed-rind cheese from Nettlebed Creamery with a wonderfully savoury aroma and a soft, creamy centre. Rich and milky with earthy, brothy and almost bacon-like flavours, it tastes much gentler than its wonderfully funky rind might suggest.
Highmoor is Nettlebed Creamery’s washed-rind cheese, made from organic cow’s milk in Oxfordshire. It’s a lovely little square with a golden-orange rind, a soft, creamy centre and an aroma that might make you expect something much more powerful than the cheese actually tastes.
And that’s one of the things I love about washed-rind cheeses. They can smell enormous but taste surprisingly gentle.
Highmoor sits alongside Bix and Witheridge in the Nettlebed range, but it has a completely different personality. Regular washing during maturation encourages the development of that distinctive rind, bringing savoury, earthy flavours while the paste underneath remains wonderfully rich and milky.
Despite the name, nobody is standing at the sink giving Highmoor a good scrub.
As the cheese matures, its rind is regularly washed with brine. This creates the conditions for particular bacteria to flourish on the surface, changing the colour, aroma and ultimately the flavour of the cheese.
It’s what gives many washed-rind cheeses their characteristic golden, orange or sometimes slightly sticky exterior — and, of course, that unmistakable smell.
But here’s the important bit: smell isn’t the same thing as flavour.
Highmoor might have quite an assertive aroma when perfectly ripe, but underneath you’ll find a much gentler cheese, with creamy milk flavours and a lovely savoury depth.
Never judge a cheese by its smell!
Highmoor is made at Nettlebed Creamery near Henley-on-Thames, where Rose Grimond and her team turn organic cow’s milk into a small range of very different cheeses.
The cheese takes its name from the nearby Oxfordshire village of Highmoor and is matured for around five weeks. During that time the little square cheeses are regularly washed, gradually developing their distinctive golden rind while the paste underneath begins to soften.
Like so many soft cheeses, Highmoor doesn’t stop changing once it’s made. A younger cheese will be firmer and milkier; as it ripens, the texture becomes softer and the flavours more savoury.
Wait for a really ripe one and things can get wonderfully gooey.
Highmoor is one of those cheeses where your nose gets there before your taste buds.
The washed rind gives it a wonderfully savoury, earthy aroma and, when it’s really ripe, I sometimes get something distinctly bacon-like from it. But take a bite and the cheese itself is much gentler than the smell might suggest.
The paste is smooth, supple and creamy, becoming beautifully soft as it warms up. There’s plenty of sweet, milky richness underneath the rind, followed by savoury, brothy flavours and a lovely umami character.
As it matures, those flavours deepen and the texture gets softer, but I never find Highmoor overwhelmingly strong.
If you’ve always been slightly frightened of washed-rind cheeses because of the smell, this is a very good one to prove that your nose doesn’t always tell you what’s about to happen.
Jen’s note: Our friends at Nettlebed Creamery run cheesemaking courses and I’ve been on one myself. It was absolutely brilliant. If you want to understand just how much work goes into making cheese — or you’re looking for a rather unusual present for a cheese lover — I’d thoroughly recommend it.
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Ingredients (Allergens are listed in capitals)
MILK, salt, starter cultures, rennet
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