‘What extra do you want than good cheese and a glass of cider?” I’m at Batch Farm, within the Somerset village of East Pennard, and cheesemaker Malcolm Dyer is genially setting out his stall. The farm is likely one of the highlights of the Somerset Meals Path, a 10-day celebration of the county’s smaller-scale meals producers working till 24 July. The path goals to spotlight the realm’s bounty, providing guests the prospect to discover farms, meet growers, picnic in group farms and “meals forests”, sip cider whereas watching native bands, and usually guzzle, graze and store to their abdomen’s content material.
Somerset is a surprisingly in depth county, so the path’s organisers have helpfully sliced it into 11 areas. Getting down to get a style of the terrain prematurely, I resolve to give attention to the patch I do know greatest – Bruton, Fort Cary and Wincanton – however to discover it anew on considered one of Bruton Bike Rent’s guided electrical cycle safaris. Ten of those excursions can be working in the course of the occasion, alongside two totally different routes, and I’m trialling the northern loop.
I meet my information, Robin Balme, on Bruton’s Excessive Road. This tiny city has punched its method into heavyweight meals circles over latest years with the opening of On the Chapel, Roth Bar & Grill,Matt’s Kitchen and Osip. Propping them up, nonetheless, is a thriving farm-to-table scene and – as soon as Balme has set me up with a motorcycle, helmet and hi-vis vest – the goal is to delve into it, fork-first.
Pedalling north out of city, we begin with a climb – first up Coombe Hill , then up tunnel-like Snakelake Hill. As we go, we’re hit by wafts of late wild garlic, the flowers warmed by shards of daylight. We cease on the high, on Crow’s Hill. To not catch our breath; we’re on Bosch-engined Dice electrical bikes and, as we navigated the steep rise, Balme had tactfully prompt that I'd wish to hit turbo (I did). It’s extra that the view is just too good to zip previous: it soars down over hedgerows and dimpled fields into Batcombe Vale.
From right here we cycle down and up once more to Westcombe, at one level squeezing between a shiny crimson van and a cottage so garlanded with roses I'm wondering if we've got stumbled right into a Postman Pat TV set. However whereas Somerset typically feels otherworldly in its pastoral prettiness, its meals producers, as in so many agricultural communities, are dealing with very actual challenges linked to local weather, biodiversity loss, provide chains and the price of residing. In opposition to this backdrop, occasions just like the Somerset Meals Path aren’t only a scrumptious approach to spend a weekend but additionally an important technique of connecting customers with native growers and producers.
One of many latter is Westcombe Dairy’s Tom Calver. As he reveals me across the dairy’s hi-tech cheese cellar, he tells me he’s been wanting more and more at biodiversity in a holistic method, making connections between the microbiome of the soil all the way in which up the meals chain to folks consuming his cheese.
Westcombe is greatest recognized for its conventional farmhouse cheddar, although it produces eight varieties of cheese, and has additionally branched out into charcuterie and has a hand in Landrace Bakery, in close by Tub, the subsequent stage of which incorporates establishing a flour mill on the farm. With The Wild Beer Firm and Brickell’s Ice Cream additionally based mostly within the dairy’s outbuildings, there's loads of scope for experimentation and collaboration; Brickell’s makes a stracciatella flavour utilizing Westcombe’s ricotta, for instance. “We’ve additionally began experimenting with agro-forestry,” says Calver. “Switching from an intensive farming system to paddock farming meant we would have liked to create shade for the cows, so we planted fruit bushes and shrubs, selecting berries within the hope that Rob, at Brickell’s, can use them in his ice-creams.”
Stuffed with the fun of regenerative farming – and bites of Tom’s addictively tangy cheddar – we cycle on, freewheeling previous historical orchards and having fun with the odor of sun-baked hay. Dipping down into chocolate field East Pennard, we roll up at Batch Farm.
Proprietor Jean Turner’s mom began making cheese right here in 1963, and Turner remains to be turning 27kg cheeses herself at 69. Strolling via the cheese cave, surrounded by rows of mould-marbled, cloth-bound cheddars, I get a definite earthy whiff of maturing cheese, and an understanding ofthe care that goes into the method. After the tour, Malcolm Dyer palms me a hunk of 16-month-old conventional mature cheddar, wealthy and nutty. I nod my head in appreciation, and Turner approves (it’s her favorite).
In a earlier life, Balme labored as an electrical engineer at Glastonbury, and we gossip in regards to the competition as we pedal on alongside the previous Roman Fosse Technique to Wraxall Winery, established in 1974. The house owners, Lexa Hunt and David Bailey (not that one), purchased it 18 months in the past, remodeling it from a sleepy English winery into one thing that wouldn’t look misplaced in Napa. Past the vines themselves (which the couple are overhauling with the assistance of skilled viticulturists), plans embrace cellar door gross sales, workshops, excursions, events and winery stays. The centrepiece is a hanging glass-walled occasion house with a unprecedented view over a vine-covered hillside to what appears just like the Somerset Ranges however is, in truth, the misty northern reaches of Dorset.
“The archaeologist at The Newt [a nearby garden and hotel that’s opening a reconstructed Roman villa this summer] is an skilled on English vineyards planted by the Romans and he believes this was on of these,” says Hunt. It’s not onerous to conjure a bacchanalian imaginative and prescient from 2,000-odd years in the past as we style a trio of wines – a glowing white, a raspberry-nosed pinot noir rosé and a fruity bacchus.
On the bike excursions, hungry cyclists will cease right here for a wine tasting and Somerset Lunch – a banquet together with sausage rolls, charcuterie, salads from Pinsents deli in Fort Cary and White Lake goat’s cheese. Immediately, although, we’re pedalling on for glasses of Harry’s Corker cider at close by Alhampton Inn and what Balme calls his “emergency ploughman’s” – a feast of Westcombe cheddar, selfmade bread and pickles stashed in his pannier that Batch Farm’s Malcolm Dyer would certainly approve of.
From right here it’s a mild 20-minute cycle again to Bruton and the tip of my magic buffet trip. Or, practically. The following day I return alone to go to a couple of extra producers. In Galhampton I meet grower Tia Cusden at Wild Backyard, a bucolic natural market backyard the place path guests can picnic by the pond and nostril round a neat patchwork of leafy greens and edible flowers. Then there’s the Somerset Spirit Firm, outdoors Fort Cary, the place entrepreneur Anthony Gaster’s milk vodka, milk gin and “wheysky” are made utilizing waste whey from Wyke Farms and sells out nearly as rapidly as he could make it (he's at present engaged on a cheese-cave-aged model of the wheysky).
My closing cease is at Chapel Cross Tea Room in South Cadbury. Run by Rose Adams, it contains a pocket-size arts venue, a circus-style outside cafe and a small herd of Golden Guernsey goats. Final winter, Adams constructed her one-woman dairy from scratch, milking the goats simply as soon as a day, in a horsebox milking parlour, in order that the youngsters can stick with their moms. The ensuing two cheeses (a nutty semi-hard and a gorgeously gooey tender) are scrumptious. One more foodie Somerset success story.
The Somerset Meals Path runs from 15 to 24 July. Guided e-bike Meals Path safaris price £100pp, all inclusive, or from £30 a half-day for e-bike rent alone. Operators in different areas of Somerset are additionally working bike excursions in the course of the path
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