Yorkshire Wensleydale

Appearance & taste

Yorkshire Wensleydale is formed into traditional round, flat wheels or cylinders from 500 g to 21 kg, or into blocks of 20 kg. The cheese is milk-white to ivory-yellowish and slightly open in texture; its texture is firm but slightly crumbly and flaky. The outside is a little more yellow, which according to the specification is the mark of handmade cheese, especially cheese wrapped in muslin. It contains at least 54 % dry matter, of which at least 48 % is fat, and at most 2.2 % salt.

The smell is milky and slightly sour. The taste is slightly tangy and mild, with a honey aftertaste that becomes stronger in well-matured cheese; well-matured cheese also has stronger, lingering flavours. Compared with Wensleydale from outside the area, the specification describes it as softer and creamier in texture and creamier, milder and less acidic in taste.

Production

Its own starter cultures are characteristic. Mother cultures are “awakened” from a commercially available primary culture and kept going as single cultures for months. Usually 18 mother cultures run in three groups of six in a three-day cycle; each day the three best from each group are selected by age and vitality, multiplied in large tanks and mixed into the day’s starter culture shortly before cheesemaking. Older cultures that are getting weaker are discarded and replaced by new ones.

The milk is pasteurised if intended, piped into the cheese vats, inoculated with the starter culture and coagulated after rennet is added. The curd is cut; curd and whey are “scalded” via the hot sides of the vat and stirred until the curd sinks and the whey drains off. The curd is cut and stirred further, salted by hand, filled into moulds and pressed, wrapped in muslin where applicable, and ripened for at least one week in the area. The times, temperatures and acidity of each vat are monitored and recorded; the cheesemaker adapts, for example, the ripening time, scalding temperature and timing of salting to the rate of acid development.

Origin & history

The area is the valley of Wensleydale in North Yorkshire with the market town of Hawes in the middle, from Sedbergh in the west to Bedale in the east. In the south it borders on Wharfedale, Nidderdale, Ribblesdale and Ripon, in the north on Swaledale. Today the cheese is only made at the creameries in Hawes and Kirkby Malzeard.

According to the specification, French Cistercian monks who settled in the valley in the 11th and 12th centuries made the first cheese, initially from sheep’s milk. After the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII around the middle of the 16th century, they passed on their knowledge to the farmers, who now mainly used cow’s milk. According to a book cited, 173 farmers’ wives in and around Wensleydale were making the cheese in 1939.

In 1897 the corn and provisions merchant Edward Chapman opened the first creamery in Hawes. In the economic crisis of the 1930s it was threatened with closure; Kit Calvert saved it and by 1966 had built up a company with branches in Hawes, Kirkby Malzeard, Masham and Coverham, which he then sold to the Milk Marketing Board. In 1992 a management team took over the creamery in Hawes from Dairy Crest. According to the specification, the recipe has hardly changed since 1897. In the 20th century the name was adopted by cheese dairies throughout the country, so that Wensleydale today also refers to a general type of cheese.