Because it's only eleven months until Christmas, right? Get your skates on people! Christmas dates are disappearing fast! Hey at least I waited until the taste of turkey and stuffing has finally left your palate and you've managed to hoover most of the pine needles out of the carpet. Christmas cheese tastings make a great staff party. With seven or eight cheeses, artisan bread and chutney, there's plenty of food to counteract all that booze and prevent any unfortunate mistlet

Nanbu Bijin Brewery’s Ume Rose Sake with Appleby’s Cheshire The flinty minerality and saltiness of Cheshire contrast beautifully with the plummy fruit of this fascinating sake. The plums must have gone in while the sake was still fermenting as I don’t get any sweetness from residual sugar, just a lovely fresh fruitiness. The flavours in both the cheese and sake are light and delicate so there’s no unseemly conflict and domination between them. Appleby’s is one of very few tra

It’s that time of year. The time when your boss says ‘what are we doing for the Christmas party? I want something different this year. Something that will really stand out. Not just another bunch of surly school leavers in white shirts handing out canapés and mulled wine’ The cheese tastings’ time has come. Cheese tastings are a fun and unique alternative to the usual Christmas ideas. Whether it’s a staff Christmas party, a thank you to your clients or an interactive event to

My name’s Ned, and I’m an affineur, the cheese equivalent of a sommelier. Its a great job that I love because I get to share my fascination for cheese with all the wonderful people who come to my cheese tastings. When I’m hosting a cheese tasting, there are two questions I always get asked. One is ‘what’s your favourite cheese?’, a subject that requires a series of posts to answer. The other is ‘how did you get into this?’ ‘This’ being talking about cheese for a living, a job

This is the big one. It seems that unlike me, wines and cheeses get more intense as they age. The 31 Month Comte from Mons Cheeses has become more crystalline than creamy and more of its sweetness has turned to acidity. The wine has turned a dark honeyed gold. Just after opening it retains some acidity that fights with the cheese a bit, but let it breathe for a while and the honey comes out - a perfect foil to the sharpness of this venerable comte. My friend Grant, who ma