Map guide: Great British Cheese Awards Finalists and Great British Cheese Day Events 2018

Before we get started, Borough Wines are holding wine & British cheese tasting events for the first-ever Great British Cheese Day on 21 October 2018! We've teamed up with seven of their stores across London for an afternoon jam-packed with wine and cheese that's perfectly paired together – for free! Get to one of the following stores on 21st October from 3–6pm to get involved:

513 Battersea Park Road, Battersea SW11 3BN

63 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QL

67 Wilton Way, E8 1BG

344a Essex Road, Islington N1 3PD

30 Station Terrace, Kensal Rise NW10 5RP

163 Stoke Newington, Church Street, N16 0UL

51 Turnham Green Terrace, Chiswick, W4 1RP

The Cheese Larder is a family-run business located in the market town of South Molton, north Devon with a love of cheese. They are very proud of the depth, variety and award-winning cheese that the West Country produces and aim to stock at any one time over 100 different varieties of cow’s, goat’s and ewe’s cheese (together with buffalo mozzarella).

Leeds' only specialist cheesemongers opened in Chapel Allerton in 2013. They source and stock the finest locally produced Yorkshire cheeses, along with a selection of the best cheeses from the UK and further afield.

Neal's Yard Dairy select, mature and sell farmhouse cheese from the UK and Ireland. They work directly with about forty cheesemakers, visiting them regularly to taste their cheese with them and selecting the batches they want to mature and sell. With three cheese shops in London and an online store, they are also a regular sight at events around the country.

The Courtyard Dairy’s owners have selected only the best cheeses from small farms. The cheeses are then given a magical touch of special maturing, learnt first-hand from working for the most famous cheesemongers of France and England.

George Mewes Cheese specialises in cheeses that can’t be sourced on most supermarket shelves. They have a carefully balanced selection of world-class British and continental artisan cheese for the discerning chef and foodie with great taste. Their cheese can be purchased from their refrigerated shop at the west end of Glasgow, or can be ordered online.

The Isle of Wight Cheese Company was established in 2006. They have fifty-two cows in their herd and use as much of their own milk as they can to make the cheese. When they are short, Briddlesford Farm are able to supply them and with that blend they are able to make the pasteurised Isle of Wight Blue, Isle of Wight Soft, Blue Slipper and Borthwood cheeses.

The Crickmore family have been farming the land at Fen Farm for three generations. Their herd of Montbeliarde and Friesian cows graze on the beautiful marshlands of the Waveney River Valley in Suffolk. The family are dedicated to carefully making their delicious raw milk into the finest cheese.

River Amble Creamery was founded in 2016 and is based in North Cornwall. Lawrence and Rosea Reynolds, along with their daughter Alex, make Cornish Jack, a delicious Swiss-style cheese with nutty notes.

Teesdale Cheesemakers was formally Leaside Cheesemakers, founded by Brian and Esme Dedman in 2012. Husband and wife team Allison and Jonathan Raper took over the business in January 2016. They make four soft cheeses: Teesdale Blue, Teesdale White, Teesdale Goat (launched in October 2016), and a flavoured Teesdale Curd cheese.

Tenacres Cheese uses raw, hand-milked milk from its own small herd of outdoor grazed pure Anglo Nubian goats. The business started in September 2014 and is slowly growing. The cheese has won numerous awards including gold at the British Cheese Awards, The Artisan Cheese Awards and the World Cheese Awards. It recently featured on Top Of The Shops with Tom Kerridge.

This nettle-wrapped Cornish Yarg made from pasteurised cows’ milk is a fresh, lemony cheese. It is creamy under its natural rind and slightly crumbly in the core.

The Kirkham family has resided at Beesley Farm for just over seventy years. Graham's father, John, moved there with his family as a baby. The first cheese was made by Ruth (Mrs Kirkham) in September 1978 and is still made on the farm today. The business is now run by Graham with the help of his partner Kellie, sons Shaun and Mike and a handful of great staff.

Mario Olianas is one of the most passionate cheesemakers in the UK. He has been making cheese for six years now and Yorkshire Pecorino has since won many awards. Mario's story all started when he went to visit his brother in Sardinia, and found out he was making cheese, and it actually tasted good! When Mario came back to Yorkshire he told his wife they needed to make some that’s better. It took them six months to find the right milk, but from then on they have been winning awards every year with Yorkshire Pecorino.

Godminster Cheddar is matured for up to twelve months, at which point the very best cheese is selected to be made into truckles. It has a rich depth of flavour without the acidity that is sometimes associated with vintage cheddar, giving it a full and rounded flavour with a smooth and creamy texture.

The Davies family have been making Dorset Blue Vinny at Woodbridge Farm for almost forty years. Dorset Blue Vinny takes over twenty-four hours to make. Each morning, they use fresh milk from their herd of 270 Friesian dairy cows. Once it has been pasteurised, hand-skimmed and the starter culture, rennet and penicillin mould added, it's ready to be made into cheese.

Stichelton is an unpasteurised English blue cheese made by Joe Schneider in partnership with Randolph Hodgson of Neal’s Yard Dairy and the Welbeck Estate.

A classic blue veined cheese made from the milk of the Bath Soft Cheese Company's own organic cows. It is ripened for eight to ten weeks to give a creamy blue veined taste. In 2014 it was awarded Supreme Champion at the World Cheese Awards.

Barnsley Brie is a creamy cheese with a hint of 'bite', slightly crumbly-textured in the middle and relatively mild when young, maturing to a soft full-bodied brie when ripe.

Tunworth has a long lasting sweet, nutty flavour and a creamy texture with a thin wrinkled rind. It is made by hand in small batches in the purpose built creamery with pasteurised whole cows milk.

Wildes Cheese is a small award winning independent artisan cheese making company based in the heart of the city on an industrial estate in Tottenham, North London. One of the cheeses they produce is Alexandra, AKA Ally Pally White, a semi hard artisan hand-made cheese originally named after Alexandra Palace. Aged for 10-12 weeks and made with non-homogenised milk from grass-fed single herd cows, Alexandra, is a rich, creamy and smooth textured cheese with buttery and nutty undertones.

Five generations of the Wright family farming the lush green fields of Ballylisk in County Armagh has led to Dean Wright becoming the first generation to make cheese. His pedigree herd produces rich and creamy milk. It is the key ingredient in the first of the Ballylisk of Armagh range - a Triple Cream cheese called the Triple Rose. It has a full flavour balanced with salty, lemony undertones.

Blackwoods Cheese Company was founded in 2013 with a mission to make great cheese. Edmund Tew is the first cheese in their convict series, cheeses named after British convicts who were transported to Australia in the 1800s for stealing cheese. Edmund Tew is a small lactic cows cheese. The brainy looking rind consists of a yeast called Geotrichum Candidum but can also develop natural white and green mould spots from time to time. Beneath the rind the smooth paste has a savoury malty flavour to it.

Mike's Fancy Cheese is Northern Ireland's first raw milk cheesemakers. Mike Thompson produces a raw milk blue cheese called Young Buck. Young Buck is based on a Stilton-recipe; made with unpasteurised milk, a slow-gentle acidification of the curd, hand-ladling, rubbing up and hastening similar to that of Stilton (to encourage a ruby-red yeast rind). It is then aged for 12-15 weeks before being split and sold.

Sheffield Cheesemasters are a new artisan cheesemaking business based in Neepsend, Sheffield. They currently make a surface ripened soft cheese called Little Mester. Little Mester is a young, fresh cheese but packed with flavour. It is gooey around the edges with a creamy core. They also sell other Artisan cheeses, provide street style food during Monthly Peddler's Markets, host monthly cheese & wine/beer evenings, create funky cheese wedding cakes and teach the public how to make cheese at their own workshops.

Just two years old, Feltham's Farm is a small cheesemaking business run by Penelope Nagle and Marcus Fergusson from their smallholding in south Somerset. Their best known cheese is Renegade Monk a soft, mildly blue cheese, made with organic cows milk, drunkenly washed in ale.

To celebrate Great British Cheese Day 2018 Errington Cheese are opening up their farm and Cheese rooms from 11am-2pm on Sunday 21st October for anybody who wants to learn more about cheese making, sheep dairying or just taste their cheese

To celebrate Great British Cheese Day 2018 Dunlop Dairy are opening up their farm and Cheese rooms from 11am-4pm on Sunday 21st October for anybody who wants to learn more about cheese making, sheep dairying or just taste our cheese. The tearoom will remain open and on the menu throughout the day will be a range of delicious dishes made with their cheeses

On Sunday 21st October, Ffarm Moelyci will be celebrating the very first Great British Cheese Day by hosting a cheese tasting of Cosyn Cymru’s soft lactic cheese in the Blas Lon Las Cafe. The cheese is called Brefu Bach and is made using local ewe’s milk, and is well worth a try if you’re in the area between 11am - 4pm on this day.

To celebrate Great British Cheese Day, Catherine Temple of Mrs Temple’s Cheese will be doing a cheese tasting and cheese demo at the start of The Little Dairy Shop’s charity walk. Join them from 10.45am on Sunday 21st October to sample a beautiful selection of local cheeses.

Head to Hampshire Farmers’ Market this Sunday and enjoy tastings from the experts at Lyburn Cheese from 10am - 2pm. The market this Sunday will be held on Palmerston Road in Southsea

To celebrate Great British Cheese Day on Sunday 21st October, the Northumberland Cheese Company will be selling their usual £7.50 Cheese and Biscuit board, for a discounted price of £5.99. Head down to their Cheese Loft Cafe anytime from 10am - 5pm on Saturday and Sunday to enjoy this special offer.

Shane Holland is Executive Chairman of Slow Food in the UK, the leading Food NGO which campaigns for Good, Clean & Fair food all. He is also a judge of the Great British Cheese Awards and will be talking about cheese at the Dartmouth Food Festival