I recommend pouring the port into the Stilton - like they do in Globus.

GG any chance you are comind down Vaud way this summer at all ? All these ploughmans events and cheese sessions are always up in the sticks of Zurich. You'd get a bunch of people for a Lausanne or Geneva event Im sure.

Mike

yeah !!!!!!

Me too but not if you ruin the Stilton by pouring port into it

A few dates are already booked.....

October 1st Morges
October 2nd Geneva

October 21st Lausanne
October 22nd Geneva

November 25th or 26th (or both) Lausanne

(also last weekend of August near Fribourg at the Highland games.... that's getting near you)

will that do for starters? I'll post details as events here nearer the time, would love to do more down your way..... help me find opportunities and I'll be there.

And for those asking if I will do more port and blue cheese days in and around Zurich, the answer is yes, there will be regular opportunities heading towards Christmas.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and feedback, I do need it sometimes!

Hopefully also arriving on the Friday (if the truck clears customs in time) is a new Stilton from Cropwell Bishop, one made with natural animal Rennet (all other Stilton these days is made with vegetarian rennet). I haven't tasted it but have spoken to plenty of people who have who claim it is even far superior to the already great Stilton they make with much more complex flavours.

Fingers crossed they get here in time as that will be great to taste with a Taylors 10 year Tawny Port

Ooooh! Maybe I can talk hubby into a (pre-)birthday weekend down in that area!

Just to remind you, we will be starting the degustation at about 5pm Friday (until 8) and again on Saturday from 11.00 - 7.00.

We will have 9 blue cheeses now which are:
Cropwell Bishop Blue Stilton (just won Gold Medal - for Stilton - at the Nantwich International Cheese show)
Cropwell Bishop Blue Stilton "Bio"
Cropwell Bishop Blue Stilton "Traditional" (with animal rennet)
Shropshire Blue
Isle of White Blue (Guernsey milk)
Perl Las Bio (Wales)
Exmoor Blue (raw Jersey milk)
Somerset Blue (raw Jersey milk)
Partridges Blue (raw Jersey milk)

we will also be offering Westcombe PDO raw milk cheddar and our best selling Godminster Bio cheddar for those who haven't been converted to blue cheeses yet. You can try all of our other cheeses as usual at our cheese stall in the market, including King Richard III Wensleydale and Gorwydd Caerphilly.

Port to taste with the cheese will include:
Grahams Reserve "Six Grapes"
Grahams Fine White
Niepoort Tawny
Niepoort Dry White
Taylors Quinta da Vargellas 2005

If we can find time to prepare, we may also be tempted to crack open a bottle or 2 of Pimm's No 1.

The tasting is free throughout the weekend!

After having read this, I'm going to sniff out some Isle of Wight blue while I'm still in the best place for it! May I ask who you ordered it from?

Isle of White Cheese, contact Richard there and he will tell you where near to you it can be found. But a tip though, buy it, or eat it, close to or over (even up to a month over) it's best before date, they date it too young in my opinion, it's very firm then and become like blue butter with a bit of age.

Last night we saw a cooking show where the host waxed lyrical about Guernsey cream. Looking forward to trying this particular blue cheese!

Thanks for that, I can see all of their IoW outlets so now I know where to pick some up.

EDIT: Just looking at their other cheeses - "Gallybagger" haha... love it. Nice IoW word that no-one ever uses.

Almost ready and I have just found out that our very nice supplier of Portwein has been very generous and given us a bottle of Grahams 20 year old to add to the tasting as well. I'm first in the queue!

Thanks Mike for organizing this event. There was certainly a good turnout for you today.

We enjoyed the delicious cheeses and wonderful port very much and could easily have over-indulged in both without any problems whatsoever.

I came away with another large bottle of port that I'd be kidding myself if I think it will last long.

To anyone going tomorrow or still thinking about it, I highly recommend it. You will not be disappointed. Nice, relaxed atmosphere, lovely cheeses, scrumptious port and as ever, excellent, friendly service all round.

@Traubert - it was very nice to meet you finally and thanks for the highly interesting conversation.

__________________
" The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. " ~ Arthur C Clarke

as the date shown above is 30th July, I hope that not all the port is already drunk away as with EFfers you never know

Thanks to Tages Anzeiger for putting our event in top tips for the weekend (Züritipp amongst others also tweeted it), we were swamped last night, we expected 20 or 30 for the warm up, we had certainly more than 150 in the 3 hours. So, sorry if you had to wait for your port, more staff are coming in today to help.

Heartwarming story of the evening..... an elderly Swiss lady came in and it was clear she wanted to talk to me so I went off to one side with her. She explained that she had read about the tasting in the paper and decided to come down and give the English cheese man a present that had been given to her about 40 years ago by a Stilton cheese maker, a Mr Watson from Melton Mowbray. (I have just found a photograph of him in my "History of Stilton" book)

"I don't think I will be around much longer and I would hate these to end up in a Brocki" as she handed me a bag containing a set of table place mats, each with a photo of a different British cheese.

She seemed really pleased when I promised to take care of them and use them whenever I could at events and workshops. I'm so lucky I meet such lovely people like that.

Isha's said it all really, but I want to add that I'm so glad I went over yesterday afternoon from Basel. The port and cheeses were really excellent, atmosphere nicely relaxed, and I'll be making another trip to pick up some Yarg sometime (actually, I think I might have to do a cheese tour of the UK, all from the soothing environs of the Markthalle, you've really got the best of British there GG).

But not only was it a foodie treat, I had a lovely warm welcome from the EFers (and their families), ended up staying much longer than expected (almost forgot I had to travel back!), having a good ol' natter, lots of laughs - I just had a great time. Thank you all - again please! xx

PS You're not the first to be surprised by the fact that I am not a man!!

Thanks GG it was a great do and am looking forward to the next one

Before anyone thinks they missed out on some sort of weird revelations, that's because of my user name, and it's the first time I've met these people.