Neal's Yard supplies farm cheeses from the British Isles to restaurants Launceston Place, Blueprint Café and Kensington Place. Much like fine wine, cheeses are aged and cared for by a dedicated team of experts at the company's base in London. The Artful Diner got a peek behind the scenes...

There is always one person in the group who doesn’t like cheese. That’s according to Talia Giles at Neal’s Yard Dairy, who is for the next few hours sharing her knowledge about not only how to make, but actually care for cheese. Of course, she’s also on a one-woman mission to convert our group’s own particular cheese doubter.

A number of us are touring the Neal’s Yard cheese maturing rooms, which nestle under railway arches in Bermondsey, South London. This is where cheese from 60 British cheesemakers is matured to optimum ripeness in the cool, humid atmosphere of old Victorian brickwork. Think Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, but with cheese, and you’ll get some sense of the practices that go on here.

Cheese as children

Admittedly, there is no cheese fondue lake, but a team of people in white coats busy themselves inventing and experimenting with ways to mature cheese. This could be coming up with a particularly gooey and oozing St James (an unpasteurised sheep’s milk cheese from Cumbria) or developing a hard version of the soft goat’s cheese, Stawley.

Despite the fact that all cheese starts with four very simple ingredients – milk, rennet, starter culture and salt – the differences in flavour and style are immense. To taste a cheese at its best and most delicious it needs to be aged properly. This is the job carried out by the team here in Bermondsey, which washes, turns and supervises cheese on a daily basis. It is in some ways “a bit like having a little kid”, according to Giles.

Newly delivered soft cheese enters the system via various temperature-controlled rooms. In one we see a rack of little Stawley cheeses sitting being gently fanned amid a series of props set up to create an even convection current. (Really the cheese does get a lot of attention.)

In another space large, round Montgomery Cheddars sit side by side in the gloom of an arch, while people carefully sort and pack in another. The essence of the job is to taste and talk, according to Giles, who emphasises that the same cheese can vary day by day.

As she takes us around, we are given little snippets of each cheese, a gooey square of St James, a little crumbly nugget of Montgomery or white, creamy Innes Log. The flavours are sometimes sweet, sometimes salty and often strong, but always, always interesting.

Cheese guide: what to eat now and why

Remember, artisan cheese-making depends on the milk available. Milk changes both according to the seasons and the different lambing, kidding and calving patterns throughout the year. It is worth asking your cheesemonger which cheese he or she recommends.

Eat up your fresh goat and sheep’s cheese. Milk levels are fast depleting, meaning there is nowhere near as much fresh cheese around as in spring and summer. (Some fresh cheeses can be on the counter within a week of milking.) Come New Year there won’t be much fresh soft cheese available, so seize the chance now.

Ask for cheese made in the summer. In summer, the milk supply is at its highest and most bountiful, so perfect for cheesemaking. Summer cheeses at around three months old will be showing best right now. Ask for Old Ford, a hard goat’s cheese made by Mary Holbrook in Somerset. The same applies to older, hard cheeses, for example, traditional farmhouse cheddars from summer 2010.

Start enjoying territorials (regional cheeses). These are the hard cheeses – the Cheshires, Lancashires, Red Leicesters and Caerphillys – whose flavours suit fuller wines and the cooler autumn weather.