Dorset Blue Vinny

Dorset Blue Vinny cheese enjoys Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), status so it is not any old cheese. This means this cheese can only be made at Woodbridge Farm, Sturminster Newton. It was the first food in this country to be awarded PGI status in 1998. Vinny comes from the Old English meaning to become mouldy.

For several centuries, Dorset Blue Vinny was made by farmers’ wives using left over skimmed milk after cream was taken away to make butter. This resulted in a dry, crumbly, low-fat blue cheese. Reputedly Blue Vinny was Dorset author Thomas Hardy’s favourite cheese. Unconventional methods were used to blue the cheese. These included placing dirty farmers’ boots nearby, dragging mouldy horse harnesses through the milk and even incredibly using slug slime. By the 1930s, factory cheese-making had increased dramatically replacing much of the farmhouse production. With milk rationing during and after World War II, production of Dorset Blue Vinny almost completely ceased. Because it was mistakenly believed that Blue Vinny was banned after the war there are tales of a black market developing in the cheese.

Production of Dorset Blue Vinny was revived by cheese maker Mike Davies in the early 1980s at Woodbridge Farm using a traditional recipe. Fortunately for cheese lovers, the old bizarre ‘bluing methods’ are not used. The cheese can be paired traditionally with honey and crunchy Dorset Knob biscuits. This combination is colourfully nicknamed ‘thunder and lightning.’

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