New cheese launch: Dalewood Lanquedoc

The Dalewood Fromage Team is very excited to officially announce the launch of its new cheese Lanquedoc™. This is a real artisanal cheese; semi-soft washed rind with a smooth, supple and creamy texture and a natural rind. Produced in rounds of approx 300g.  Limited edition, Very limited production.

SA Dairy Championships Dinner

Rob & Petrina joined the Who's Who in the Dairy Industry & attended a Masquerade evening for the 2011 SA Dairy Championships Dinner on 27th April in Stellenbosch. Both their Huguenot (10 and 18 month mature) and Wineland Chef's Camembert were awarded 2011 South African Champions. < IMAGE  | Petrina Visser receives a Dairy Champion award for the Camembert from the President of Agri-Expo, Mr Joubert Van Wyk at the 2011 SA Dairy Championships Dinner

Slow Food Convivium

Dalewood’s Huguenot - the largest head of brushed rind cheese produced in South Africa - was awarded the prestigious "Artisanal Cheese Citation" at the Slow Food Cape Town Convivium. < IMAGE | Mr Stephen Flesch Chairman of the Slow Food Convivium, Cape Town congratulating Petrina Visser of Dalewood on the Artisanal Cheese Award at the 2011 SA Cheese Festival.

Calving season at Dalewood

Danie Slabbert, Dalewood’s Farm Manager & his dedicated Team is always extremely hard at work. Autumn is however particularly busy with the juggling of calving, ploughing & sowing. The calving season starts in March & continues through until November. The season has started well – Dalewood announces the birth of 30 healthy calves during April.

Sowing of winter grain

With the positive growth in the number of heifers, the Farm Team has been expanding the pastures and sowing winter grains for their cows that are fresh in milk in order to have enough grazing in about 60 days time when the permanent irrigated pastures go into hibernation. They have just completed the sowing of 21 hectares for winter grazing beginning with the gentle nurturing of the biological life in the soil; an intensive preparation. Dalewood’s preferential seed mix is a combination of oats & barley with a natural winter rye grass. Thankfully this is a very rewarding task upon completion as all being well the seed germinates within 24 hours. Most importantly this is an entirely natural process, Dalewood doesn’t use any artificial fertilizers, insecticides or weed killers.

Five new family members on the farm

Bubbles one of Dalewood's hyperactive Jack Russell’s recently had four puppies. Rob decided to extend the family further & has imported a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy all the way from Kwazulu Natal!

Fire & Spice Travel TV visits Dalewood

Dalewood Farm was honoured to have been paid a visit by Fire & Spice Travel TV  today.  “This is a new international travel series that will follow Chef Holli (Season 7 winner of Hell’s Kitchen) & host Desirée Anderson around the world to experience cuisine, culture & unprecedented fun!” They are currently in South Africa and the Franschhoek Valley to film their first season.

The entire team of producers was here to experience early morning milking, check out the first stages of cheese making & sample a selection of fromage all before breakfast!

www.chefholli.com

www.fireandspicetraveltv.com

The first Dalewood newsletter!

Click here to read the first Dalewood newsletter online

Prestigious Award

Dalewood Farm recently won a prestigious award in the Jersey breeders world. On Friday 18th March after having various judges on the farm from the Western Cape Jersey Association one of Rob's top performing cows impressed the panel enough to be awarded a trophy for a Jersey of excellence.

Dalewood's new website

Dalewood.co.za has undergone a complete make-over. Apart from a new layout and simplified navigation, you can now browse through the full Dalewood Fromage range, subscribe to our monthly newsletter, join us on Facebook, read archived newsletters or comment on our blog.

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www.dalewood.co.za

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Dalewood Fromage on Facebook

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Cheese Makers Fellowship in Burgundy

Dalewood Fromage cheese maker, Nellie Fischer, was chosen to participate in the "Cheese makers Fellowship" in Burgundy at the end of last year.

This is a joint initiative sponsored by the Western Cape Government & the Regional Council of Burgundy. The trip is organised by Agri-Expo South Africa & Kobus Mulder, South Africa's greatest cheese ambassador.

Nellie spent three invaluable weeks learning about Cheese Making; both in theory & in practice. She had the opportunity of visiting many famous cheeseries in Burgundy. She returned with a certificate of achievement. We are very proud of her.

World Cheese Awards 2010 : Super Gold

Dalewood Fromage Huguenot wins Super Gold Medal

We are extremely proud to announce that our Huguenot® has been awarded a Super Gold Medal at the World Cheese Awards 2010 held this year in Birmingham, U.K.

Kobus Mulder of Agri Expo had the following to say, "Well done to the cheese maker and affineur at Dalewood Fromage; the Super Gold medal awarded to their Huguenot during the initial judging round pushed it through to the second round of 47 cheeses from where it was selected for the final round of 14 cheeses.  During this round, the 15 international judges from 11 countries on The Supreme Panel, in their "wisdom", decided that the Cornish Blue should be crowned the World Champion for 2010".

"Judges consisted mainly of cheese makers, cheese buyers of supermarkets (Whole Food Market and Tesco), speciality food shops (Partridges and Paxton & Whitfield), cheese scientists and food journalists.  Most of these judges come across good cheeses in their everyday commercial life and were looking for the "Wow" factor during judging. They appeared to be stricter and were expecting cheeses to surprise them with exceptional flavour and texture qualities before awarding a medal".

"Hosted at the BBC Good Food Show on 24^th November 2010, 201 judges from 19 different countries judged 2 629 cheeses from 29 countries".

In addition Huguenot® won the Agri Expo Trophy for the Best South African cheese on the show.