Dairy
Dorset Blue Vinny
Dorset Blue Vinny is a traditional English blue cow’s-milk cheese from Dorset, historically made from skimmed milk after cream was taken for butter, yielding a drier, crumbly, low-fat blue with sharp, peppery veins. The name “vinny” relates to the mould or veining; the paste is pale and firm rather than rich and creamy like many modern blues. It is eaten as a table cheese with bread, cider, or fruit, and remains a regional specialty rather than a mass-market blue. Revival production restored a cheese that had nearly disappeared in the twentieth century.
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History
Skim-milk blue cheeses were made on Dorset farms after cream separation for butter.
Blue Vinny was a known local type, dry and crumbly compared with richer blues.
Traditional Dorset Blue Vinny production largely ceased under dairy industrialisation.
Woodbridge Farm and others revived authentic Dorset Blue Vinny with traditional character.
Protected status efforts and specialty sales secured the revived cheese’s regional identity.
Farmhouse Dorset Blue Vinny remained a rare British territorial blue on specialty boards.