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The People’s Cheese 2026
Nearly 500 People Came Together to Judge Britain’s Best New Cheese
The People’s Cheese 2026 Heats at Chiswick Cheese Market
Something very special happened on May 17th at Chiswick Cheese Market.
Nearly 500 members of the public joined us for the heats of People’s Cheese, our search for Britain and Ireland’s Best New Cheese, and what unfolded was one of the most exciting, emotional and fiercely close competitions we’ve ever hosted.
Supported brilliantly by Chiswick Cheese Market, the day saw hundreds of people tasting, debating, discussing and championing real cheese made by real people. This wasn’t a panel of industry judges hidden behind closed doors. This was the public deciding. Farmers, food lovers, chefs, families, cheesemongers and curious first timers all taking part together.
And the response was overwhelming.
In fact, demand was so high that we ran out of voting slips twice.
Throughout the day we hosted three separate heats, each showcasing very different styles of cheese. We began with softer, more delicate cheeses before moving into harder and washed rind styles. The final heat celebrated blues and flavoured cheeses and every single tasting sparked passionate discussion amongst the crowd.
What became immediately clear was just how close the competition was.
Across all categories, many cheeses were separated by only one or two percent. The standard was extraordinary and choosing the finalists became incredibly tense right until the final count.
After hundreds upon hundreds of votes were cast, four cheeses emerged as this year’s finalists.
HERO CHEESE Buffalicious Boconccini Mozzarella
Buffalicious: Britain’s Buffalo Mozzarella With Soul
In Somerset, a small herd of water buffalo is quietly challenging what British cheese can be.
Buffalicious began, like many great farming stories, with a problem. Jonathan’s father was running a small dairy farm at a time when conventional milk production had become brutally hard. Quotas, poor returns and supermarket pressure meant there was little joy, and even less money, in producing milk from black and white cows.
So he changed course.
CORK & CURD Falanghina Montecalvo
Falanghina is an ancient Italian grape, believed to be of Greek origin. Records show that Falanghina was likely to be the grape variety behind Falernian, the most famous wine of Roman antiquity. Most Falanghina is grown in Campania, in southern Italy. The vines thrive in the porous volcanic soils around Mount Vesuvius and the warm Mediterranean climate.
HERO CHEESE St Helena
In a quiet corner of Norfolk, St Helena emerges not as a product of force, but of restraint. Born from a moment of inspiration in the Auvergne, where market tables in Saint Nectaire sparked an idea, this cheese is a study in minimal intervention and maximum attention. It is milk led, raw, and alive, guided rather than controlled.
CORK & CURD Salto, Sangiovese
Aprils Wine Pairing – Salto Sangiovese, Ilauri, chosen by Katherine Dart MW
Chosen to perfectly pair with St Helena. Made by Blake Bowden at St Jude Cheese Dairy.
HERO CHEESE Wakebridge
Wakebridge Manor Creamery feels like a dairy that’s happy to be young. Curious, slightly exposed, willing to learn in public. It’s cheesemaking shaped by land, season and sheep, with just enough science and confidence to let things happen. And honestly, that’s exactly how great cheese should be made. It is a real pleasure to be championing this brilliant cheese and helping more people find it.
HERO CHEESE Royal Basset Blue
CORK & CURD Benjamin Malbec, Nieto Senetiner
Benjamin was released in the Argentine market when Bodega Nieto Senetiner decided to extend the family portfolio, bringing youth and freshness to their range of Malbecs.
CORK & CURD Monte Schiavo Ruviano
HERO CHEESE Golden Saye
WHAT’S IN A NAME? THE STORY BEHIND “GOLDEN SAYE”
The name Golden Saye holds the keys to its identity.
“Golden” reflects the cheese’s rich yellow paste, the natural result of Guernsey milk’s high beta-carotene content.
“Saye” honours Stratfield Saye, where the Duke of Wellington’s pedigree Guernsey herd grazed in the late 1980s. This is where Jake’s Mum and Village Maid founder Anne Wigmore, first experimented with Guernsey milk cheesemaking. Those early experiments eventually led to the creation of Golden Saye.
Pen Paste & Plain Speaking: Patrick McGuigan On Cheese
Patrick’s been writing about cheese for close to two decades. He’s a World Cheese Awards judge. He’s got that rare journalist’s gift: he can celebrate the joy of cheese without losing sight of the tension underneath it. And he’s just co-written a new book with Carlos Yescas, One Cheese to Rule Them All, a title that’s playful on the surface, but actually points straight to the big question at the heart of modern cheese.
CORK & CURD Tavo Pinot Grigio
This is not your average Pinot Grigio from the Veneto. It is a varietally true example of this often misunderstood grape. A member of the extended Pinot family of grape varieties, Pinot Gris (Grigio) is a pink-skinned mutation of Pinot Noir. The two grape varieties are indistinguishable in the vineyard right up until veraison.
HERO CHEESE: Yoredale
From Finance to Farmhouse: The Curlew Dairy Story. This month we meet Ben Spence of Curlew Dairy, the maker reviving raw-milk Wensleydale in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. His cheese, Yoredale, is lactic, buttery and bright, capturing the true flavour of place and the quiet craft of real farmhouse cheesemaking.
HERO CHEESE: Doddington
Few dairies capture the quiet integrity of British farmhouse cheesemaking quite like Doddington Dairy. Set in the rolling pastures of Northumberland, it stands as a model of how tradition and sustainability can coexist, a place where the rhythm of the land still shapes what ends up on the table.
FLAVOUR SYNC: Pure & Hazel
The Real Cheese Project caught up with chocolatier Fritz Schwartz of Pure & Hazel between markets and mould-polishing to talk about his newest creation for our November Cheese Crowd - The Bite: an apple strudel–hearted chocolate designed to sit alongside Doddington, this month’s hero cheese.
CORK & CURD: The Francophile
The Francophile Syrah is grown and produced at De Morgenzon in Stellenbosch. De Morgenzon translates from Africaans as ‘The Morning Sun’. This was the name granted to the farm by Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel in 1699 because the altitude and the orientation means that this estate is the first property in Stellenboschkloof to benefit from the sun’s early morning rays.
INTERVIEW: Katherine Dart MW
The Bite sits down with Master of Wine Katherine Dart to explore what happens when the right cheese meets the right wine. From Wensleydale to Pinot Grigio to Rosé and Stilton, this is a story of curiosity, craftmanship, and community.
CHEESE CHAT Jake Goldstein
If you’ve ever launched a food business at the “silly” end of the year, you’ll know the mix of adrenaline and mild chaos Jake is living on right now. Primrose Creamery is new, the make room still smells of fresh paint, and the recipes are moving from bench-top trials to proper batches. But inside that newness is an old-school idea: cheeses that change with the milk, with the weather, with the day. As Jake puts it, “a winemaker has a vintage every year; a cheesemaker has a vintage every day.” It’s the north star for Primrose, listen to the milk, make what the milk wants, and let the seasons be visible in the rind.
INTRODUCING: Pencw Cheese - Jemima Blue
Penrhiw Organic Farm sits high above Fishguard, where sea air brushes the hedgerows and herbal leys ripple across soft Welsh hills. Alan and his partner are building a new kind of dairy: small, organic, and guided by low-stress, high-welfare principles. Their herd of Jerseys and Jersey-crosses is milked once a day, soon to be kept with calves at foot, a system designed for happier cows, healthier milk, and exceptional cheese.
People’s Cheese 2026: Britain’s Best New Cheese
The cheese awards of the people is back for 2026! This year, we’ll be championing British & Irish cheeses, with the support of our friends Chiswick Cheese Market, who are sponsoring People’s Cheese 2026: Britain’s Best New Cheese.