Nina and Jason Wilson moved into their farm on the Orkney island of Westray in 2012 and began the long process, firstly of adapting a former beef farm into a dairy, then starting the conversion to full organic status. Jason spent a year studying cheese-making, having worked on farms all over the UK as a fruit and vegetable picker and ending up as farm manager. He completed his cheese-making training with two weeks at Locharthur dairy, where Barry Graham and his team make his award-winning artisan cheeses. Nina and Jason were fortunate to meet many cheese-makers on their travels and get inspiration and advice for the types of cheeses they hoped to make one day. Their favourites were Alpine cheese (they liked the sweet nutty flavour and the melting quality) and, inspired by these cheese-making greats, they soon began to make their own. Theirs are bacteria-ripened (rather than the more usual mould-ripening in the UK) in the continental style.
