The flavour of Montgomery’s Cheddar can vary tremendously. One of the principal reasons for this is that the bulk starter culture is changed every day over the course of a week, with the consequence that each day has its own character, ranging from meaty and savoury to sweet and fruity. As with our other Cheddars, two or three members of our team visit Jamie every month in order to taste every batch and select the ones that we want to sell.

Montgomery’s Cheddar has been made at Manor Farm in North Cadbury, Somerset for three generations, since the Montgomery family moved down from Scotland in the early twentieth century. When Jamie Montgomery took over from his mother in the mid-nineties, the market for clothbound Cheddars was dominated by cheese with a bright, acid, sharp flavour set in a soft creamy paste, which was well suited to supermarket cutting lines. Determined to make something different from these rather uniform cheeses, he set out to make a cheese with a drier texture and more complexity.

Jamie Montgomery now works alongside cheesemaker Steve Bridges. The texture of Montgomery’s Cheddar is now consistently drier than our other clothbound Cheddars and it certainly delivers on flavour. Twenty years on, Montgomery’s Cheddar is our best-selling Cheddar. Typically we mature Montgomery’s Cheddar for 16 to 18 months.

Milk: Raw Cow’s Milk, farms own milk

Coagulant: Animal Rennet

Additional information