As most of you will know, I adore cheese! I’ve always got my eye on what’s great out there and I always look forward to the French awards. This year the Concours Général Agricole cheese judging took place on 1 March at the Porte de Versailles in Paris. A total of 417 medals were awarded for all different types of French cheese including 131 gold, 147 silver and 139 bronze medals.

Comté PDO was a particularly strong cheese in this year’s competition winning 23 medals. Saint-Nectaire Fermier PDO and Reblochon Fermier PDO followed closely behind winning 18 and 13 medals respectively.

This year, the Concours Général Agricole started on 27 February and featured three types of competition: produce (cheese, wine and oth er products), breeding animals and the judging competition for agricultural students. The CGA (General Agricultural Competition) has been running annually since 1870 and was set up to reward the best French agricultural products.

The competition is instigated and regulated by the French Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and there are many rounds which take place regionally culminating in the CGA in Paris. There are 3,400 individual judges, representative of the entire food chain: from producers to buyers. The competition is split into 23 categories with 3,600 food products, 14,000 wines and 2,000 animals being entered.

The competition gives consumers a quality standard to look for when shopping, allows producers to compare the quality of their product to others’ and adds great value to the produce. If a medal is awarded it demonstrates a very high quality; fewer than 23% of entries receive a medal and fewer than 8% of entries receive a gold medal.

The Concours Général Agricole takes place at the same time as the 47th Salon International de l’Agriculture, the international agricultural show. This year also saw the return of the biennial cheese trade fair, the Salon du Fromage, at the same venue. This is the largest showcase for French PDO dairy products with 44 of the current 45 PDO products being represented at the exhibition. Some 6,000 trade members visited the 150 exhibitors who included producers, cooperatives, importers and cheese and dairy product specialists.

Vive le cheese!

And if you want to know what the most excellent Cheeses are, which we've tried with Beaujolias (courtesy of our favourite Ccese guru Tom Badcock of the Cheese Cellar) - read on!

Rosary Goat Garlic & Herb

A fresh goat cheese ready to eat within around three days, it is a soft cheese with a smooth creamy texture made with vegetarian rennet with a layer of Herb and Garlic which complement the subtle mild cheese.. Produced by The Moody's, this family run business in Landford on the edge of the New Forest produces 14 tonnes of cheese a year and now buy in their milk for cheese making from a select herd of 100 pedigree British Saanen goats.

Brillat Savarin Lincet

This luscious triple cream cheese has a milky aroma with faintly lemon sour tones and a velvety texture. It was created in the 1930's and named after a famous French epicurean and gastronomist. The flavour is similar to the aroma but with a meadow sweet creaminess which is most addictive. The adage for this cheese used to be "the younger the better" but the Brillat Savarin affiné by Didier Lincet becomes even more buttery and decadent.

Epoisses Germain

The rich-smelling famous washed rind cheese from Burgundy offers a fine-texture and a balance of salty, sweet and savoury flavours. Epoisses Germain goes through the complex process of being washed in water, brine, and then finally marca, pungent cows-milk cheese which gives this cheese its renowned smell.

Berkswell Baby

This ewe milk cheese has a firm, ivory paste with a fabulous flavour.  It is handmade at 16th Century Ram Hall, situated on the edge of Berkswell village from where the cheese takes its name. The Ram Hall range of ewes' milk cheeses form part of the growing number of speciality cheeses made by artisan cheese makers in the British Isles.

Buffalo Blue

A semi-soft blue cheese made from buffalo milk, it is wonderfully smooth and light and has a rich and creamy texture. The taste is sweet and creamy with nuances of the countryside to which the blue adds just the right amount of tang to be interesting but not overwhelming.

St Tola Hard Organic Goats

This is a cheddar style goats’ cheese with a marbled pale complexion and a sweet, tangy nutty flavour. St Tola organic handmade cheeses have been made in the town land of Inagh just south of the Burren in County Clare since the early 1980’s, initially by Meg and Derrick Gordon but taken over by their neighbour Siobhan Ni Ghairbhith in 1999. Try it with slice of pear and a glass of wine!

 All of these sumptuous cheeses are available at British supermarkets - but Waitrose is probably your best bet!

 Eat well!!