Hello and welcome to my first newsletter of 2022. Sorry it’s been a while since my last newsletter. Things here in Pangbourne have been amazingly busy. December is traditionally our busiest month of the year and 2021 was no exception. We are always so grateful to all of our customers, be it those who queue for counter service or those who have pre-ordered either in store or online. It’s a crazy few days but vital in the retail world.

So what’s new in 2022?

Our tasting rooms are up and running which have been in the pipeline for a little while but we can now offer cheese & wine events. We’ve hosted two this January and they’ve both been a great success. There are two a month in the diary for the first six months of the year, all bookable through our website at cheese-etc.co.uk/cheese-etc-shop/events/ We are also offering bespoke events to groups of 10 of more and the tasting room is available to hire if you need a meeting place in Pangbourne. I’m hoping to run a cheese & tea event (my two favourite things in life) and a cheese & chocolate event has been suggested…. I’ll have fun doing the pre-event matching for that evening 😋

In the counter at the moment we have a lovely Scottish sheep milk cheese – Lanark Blue. Made by Errington Cheese in Lanarkshire (just south of Edinburgh) it has a wonderful punchy flavour with definite umami flavourings. It is loosely based on a Roquefort recipe. The Erringtons went over to France to bring back a herd of Lacaune sheep whose milk is used in the production of Roquefort. We’ve been struggling to source the Crozier Blue and so the Lanark is a perfect substitute. You can now buy the Lanark Blue both in store and online.