Tom Burgess’s award-winning Coolattin cheddars are made in a small dairy farm in west Wicklow
At least for this blow-in cheese-lover, the answer is definitely “yes”. As a lifelong caseophile, since moving here I have made a small study of the glories that are Irish cheeses. I read my bedside copy of the Sheridan’s Guide religiously, and regularly make a pest of myself sampling anything new that I find at the market.
How I’d never heard of it before I’ll never know. After all, for the last two years it has been judged the best cheddar in the world at the World Cheese Awards. Before that, it had been twice chosen as the best Irish cheese at the same competition. Even earlier, it twice had been crowned the supreme champion at the Irish Cheese Awards.Both the quality of the cheese and its relative obscurity are down to the meticulous care of Coolattin Cheese owner Tom Burgess.
Coolattin only sells two kinds of cheese and they’re made almost identically. The morning milking goes straight into cheesemaking, where after heating, setting, cutting and draining, it is transformed into the beginnings of cheddar, wrapped in linen to allow the cheese to breathe and ready to start ageing.
Needless to say, none of Burgess’s cheeses have much in common with what you may know as cheddar. In fact, he says, when he started selling the cheese, some friends suggested he should avoid that name because it is so associated with bland supermarket cheese.
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