Divine

Divine is the brain child of Claire Burt and Tom Partridge, based in Ollerton, near to Knutsford in Cheshire. This cheese starts out life in much the same way as their well known and famous Burts Blue cheese which was Claire’s first cheese.

Claire Burt started making cheese in January 2009 in Altrincham, Cheshire. It was a career in the dairy industry that inspired Claire to follow her passion for cheese-making and started it as a hobby on her kitchen table. After winning Gold for Burt’s Blue Cheese at the International Cheese Show in Nantwich in 2010, she decided to pursue the business full-time.

Launched in 2015, Divine is washed in Gwatkins cider, a wonderful cider made by the Herefordshire artisan cider producer in Abbey Dore. The cheese is then wrapped in vine leaves to give it its distinctive look. Similar to Drunken Burt in that the ‘paste’ of cheese takes on some of the golden colour of the cider and also some of the flavour characteristics. The Divine is more like a typical washed rind cheese; it tends to develop to a smoother paste and have a fuller flavour. This cheese won a Gold medal at the British Cheese Awards in 2015 in the new product category.

The pasteurised cows milk is inoculated with the Penicillium Roqueforti bacteria, which is allowed to develop on the surface of the cheese. However, the cheese isn’t pierced during ripening so it doesn’t develop the blue veins as the Burt’s Blue cheese would. (The paste may occasionally develop small pockets blue). 

The younger cheese will have a chalky centre (or paste) which carries with it the fresh ‘apple’ acidity from the cider. As the cheese matures, the acidity softens and the flavours become more rounded and subtle, and the cider ‘notes’ become less ‘appley’ and more ‘oaky’ from the aged cider barrels. The paste softens to become silky smooth and almost Brie like at times.