August is a funny old month here in the cheese shop. A lot of our regular customers go away whereas we get an influx of visitors. Being situated a stone’s throw from the Thames means that we have lots of people who arrive in the village by boat. After all Jerome K Jerome’s 3 Men In A Boat ended their journey in Pangbourne before ditching their boat and hopping on a train back to Paddington!

This August has started, like many do, with a lot of orders for cheese wedding towers. These seem to be as popular as ever and I love spending time with couples, helping them to choose the cheeses for the tower. There’s something really special about being involved in the planning of a couple’s big day.

This month has also seen the launch of our new guest cheese spots. There’s always a hard, a soft and a blue – none of which then feature on our website. They stay with us for a month and then they disappear. I’m trying to make sure that at least one of the cheeses comes from a small producer and preferably a British one!

I’m really keen to establish links with artisan cheesemakers and to promote their products and I love it when a guest cheese is so popular that it retains its place (unfortunately we don’t have room for them all…!) We’ve had so many requests for July’s Drunken Burt that I think it’s going to have to come back sooner than I’d anticipated.

Our guest cheeses this month are Vacherousse d’Argental, Dewlay’s Crumbly Lancashire and Duke of Wellington Blue. The Vacherousse in particular has gone down a storm with our customers. We’ve used it in our August cheese & wine tastings, pairing it with a light, fruity white wine. The Lancashire is here because we’ve been asked time and time again for a more crumbly Lancashire than Graham Kirkham’s and I tasted the Dewlay’s at the International Cheese Awards so thought we’d give it a go. The Duke of Wellington is a Yorkshire cheese originally created for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Got to keep both the Red and White Roses happy!

We are totally delighted that we have been shortlisted in the Speciality & Fine Food Fair Awards 2024. These awards recognise and celebrate the individuals and businesses driving excellence and product innovation in the fine food & drink community. We would be eternally grateful if you could spare a couple of minutes to vote for us in the Small Independent Retailer section

We also have a couple of exciting events coming up in September… Following the success of our Cheese & Beer tasting evening we are hosting a Cheese & Cider tasting here in Pangbourne on the 12th. We are then heading off site to the amazing Watermill Theatre in Newbury to host a Cheese & Wine Fundraiser on the 18th.