The awards, staged at Dorfold Hall Park on the edge of the historical market town of Nantwich, saw The Wensleydale Creamery win a range of trophies and awards including five Gold, five Silver and three Bronze.

The Wensleydale Creamery took home Gold awards for its Real Yorkshire Wensleydale, Smoked Real Yorkshire Wensleydale, Real Yorkshire Wensleydale with Ocean Spray Cranberries and also scooped a Trophy for the Best Dressed Cheese in Show.

The results at Nantwich follow an extremely successful six months for The Creamery which won multiple awards at the recent World Cheese Awards, Royal Bath & West, The Great Yorkshire and Royal Welsh Cheese & Dairy Shows.

Last week, The Creamery also announced that it was a step closer in its aim of achieving Protected Designation of Origin for Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese.

Managing Director of The Wensleydale Creamery, David Hartley, said: �??The Nantwich International Cheese Show has been a fantastic success for us. To win seventeen awards is a great achievement and a real testament to the quality of our products and the care with which they are made.�??

Wensleydale is such a lovely part of the world and is as pretty as a picture!

With this in mind we are launching a competition for the best pictures of Wensleydale - prize to be announced.

Send your pictures to the nice people at GREEN Communications at info@greencomms.com - and they will post them on our Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Flickr account and this website. We will then invite viewers to vote for their favourite.

Let you imagine run free - pictures of the dales, cows, sheep, cheese, whatever will all be accepted.

Customers - including independents and major store groups - have been unaffected by the fire and manufacturing of the Creamery’s wide range of cheeses continues.

Since the fire at the Creamery staff have been absolutely fantastic and have rallied round to ensure that our customers have not been inconvenienced by the consequences of the fire.

Production of some of our deli-blended range has been moved to our creamery at Kirby Malzeard while we concentrate on repairing the damaged plant at the Creamery in Hawes and installing new machinery.

The Wensleydale Creamery suffered a fire in the cheese blending area of the Creamery early Sunday morning, May 13, 2007. No one was injured during the fire, there was no loss to cheese making and there are no implications for farmers who supply milk to the Creamery.

The awards, which were held at Shepton Mallet in Somerset saw The Wensleydale Creamery win three Golds, one Silver and the Aplin & Barrett Perpetual Challenge Trophy for most points in the territorial cheese categories.

The Wensleydale Creamery took home Golds for its Real Yorkshire Wensleydale, Red Leicester and Cheshire cheeses and was awarded a Silver for its Double Gloucester cheese.

The latest accolades add to the awards recently achieved at the World Cheese Awards, when The Wensleydale Creamery won awards for its Real Yorkshire Wensleydale, Extra Mature Real Yorkshire Wensleydale and Sheep’s Milk Wensleydale version.

Managing Director of The Wensleydale Creamery, David Hartley, said: “To win one award is a great achievement but to take home four plus a trophy is outstanding. After last month’s fire at the Creamery it is great to be given recognition for the hard work that we put into producing our high quality, handcrafted products.

He adds: “I would like to thank the entire team at the Wensleydale Creamery for their skill and dedication. It is because of our committed staff that we continue to produce the best quality cheeses in the marketplace and to consistently win awards of this caliber.”

The recipes all incorporate the creamy, crumbly and slightly sweet taste of Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese - a fantastic addition to salads at summer time.

There’s nothing quite like a nice healthy salad for lunch when it’s sunny. We have put together a few suggestions to give our customers some alternatives to cheese sandwiches, which we hope they will enjoy.

Crunchy apple & Wensleydale salad
Dice one juicy ripe Granny Smith, mix in a bowl with a handful of fresh lettuce, chopped tomato and diced crumbly Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese. Serve with a light drizzle of olive oil salad dressing.

Wensleydale & shrimp salad
Take a handful of crispy lettuce and place in a bowl with a generous portion of fresh shrimps. Mix with half a chopped pepper, diced cucumber and grated Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese. Serve with a light covering of Marie Rose seafood dressing.

Walnut & Wensleydale salad
Chop a portion of walnuts into small pieces and place into a bowl with chopped lettuce, diced celery, tomato and spring onion and drizzle with walnut olive oil and a light white wine vinegar. Mix in a good helping of diced Real Yorkshire Wensleydale and serve. Try with Traditional Real Yorkshire Blue Wensleydale for an extra tangy taste.

If you have any recipes using Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese we would love to hear them.

But never fear - the fire was only a small area of our site at Hawes, North Yorkshire, and cheese production remains unaffected. Also our visitor centre remains open for business as usual.

No one was injured during the fire, there was no loss to cheese making and there are no implications for farmers who supply milk to the Creamery.

The damage was confined to the cheese blending area, however much of the blending and packing equipment has been saved.

Managing Director David Hartley said: “We are very lucky that there has been no loss to cheese making at Hawes and no loss to production. The blending area, where we mix the cheese with other ingredients such as cranberries, is separate to the cheese-making facility so we have been able to re-start production.

“A crisis management team is in the process of cleaning and relocating the blending facility so that we can resume full production at the earliest possible opportunity.”

On his blog at Richard Corbett says: “Earlier this month Wensleydale progressed to the next stage of their campaign by taking 14,000 signatures of support (including mine) to the House of Commons in a bid to win the backing it needs from Defra before taking its case to Europe.

“Now Yorkshire’s famous rhubarb triangle is aiming for PDO status. The area between Leeds, Pontefract and Wakefield was once responsible for over 90% of the world’s rhubarb, which is renown for its forced growth in the dark and its subsequent sweeter, longer stalks.

“Both rhubarb and Wensleydale cheese fully deserve to be recognised with a PDO, as they are unique products that only specific parts of Yorkshire can produce and should be protected from poor quality imitators.”

Thanks for your support Richard - you’re welcome to visit us at the creamery anytime you are in Hawes.

Our new brand has been designed to focus on the company’s key message - that it is the only producer of Real Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese in the world.

IFE, which runs until March 21, is being held at ExCel, the international exhibition and conference centre in London. The Wensleydale Creamery will also introduce Wenselydale& Cranberry - a blended cheese that effortlessly brings together the fruity flavour of the juiciest Ocean Spray cranberries with the soft, crumbly and creamy texture of Real Yorkshire Wensleydale.

The creamery has re-invigorated itself ahead of a planned marketing campaign that will showcase all that’s good about The Wensleydale Creamery and its cheeses. It will seek to encourage shoppers to enjoy the ‘�?�?authentic taste of the Dales’�? and take advantage of a product that is local, traditional and natural.

Our David Hartley said: “We have seen our business grow year on year over the past fourteen years. While we adhere to time-honoured traditional, handcrafted production techniques at The Wensleydale Creamery we are also an innovative business constantly looking for new and exciting formats. This has proven very successful in the past particularly with our new and improved blended Wensleydale& Cranberry.

“With this in mind we have chosen to revisit our brands and have invested in a new look and feel that better reflects our values, traditions and the goodness of Wensleydale. We like to think of this as evolution rather than a revolution and of course clearly communicates our key message that we are the only producer of Real Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese in the World.”

The Wensleydale Creamery, led by David Hartley (pictured) handed over more than 14,000 signatures to Richmond Tory MP William Hague backing its application for protected status.

Brian did a series of five recipes - from a starter right through to pudding - for a selected audience of journalists in the capitol at National Magazine House. All the recipes feature Real Yorkshire Wensleydale.

You can check al the pictures at our web page at flickr here.