Calendar Highlights

Up coming events

I will be off cheese hunting in France once again. This year I hope to make it over to see the great cheese maturing chateaux in the Alps, visit the Malbec festival as a trade VIP and get Milan to meet the gorgozola makers. All that in the Duchess, my landorver tent combo.  I am getting a better fridge and bigger speakers fitted for the purpose.

Turnbulls were at Serenata last weekend for the August Bank Holiday..... now we're looking forward to the autumn, dark evenings and Christmas....  delicious soups, sumptuous cheeses and chutneys, warming red wine.  What could be better?  Look out for our Christmas hampers and late night shopping evening.

We are really excited to have join the world of social media this year!  You can now find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!  Join us to hear about our news and events and even competitions and special offers for our most loyal fans.  Not to mention Charlie T's inimitable commentary..!

Things we have done

Christmas 2009

This year we were nervous with the credit crunch and all that Christmas, which accounts for two thirds of our annual profit, might not happen, but it was 16% better 2008. 2007 has been our best Christmas in our history, and we nearly equalled that.

Cheese was the star performer.  My favourites were Montgomery’s, Colston Basset Stilton, von Muhlenen’s Gruyer and our dolce gorgonzola – England’s best hard and blue cheeses and Europe’s best hard and blue cheeses.  France’s Rouzaire Brie went well as well, but strangely the bries we had in January were as good as any I have sold.  Perhaps the pressure to increase production for Christmas at Rouzaire meant they were rushing some of their cheeses out the door.  And you can’t rush a brie without compromising.

Our hams have also been a cracking no 1 product.  With the separation of Turnbulls form the Turnbulls Catering & Events kitchen unit on the business park this year, we produced all our hams in the High Street kitchen.  Inevitably this meant late nights for our cooks, but they did well.

Looking forward to 2010!

Turnbulls tapas café menu

We introduced our new menu in September.  After many years of specials menus printed each day and tired printed menus on the tables, we decided to innovate and focus more on our Lazy Susans which have been so popular and make us unique in the region.  To kick it off we invited some regular customers and some press to a tasting evening of all the dishes we had in mind.

The evening was cracking, but that might have been helped by the free wine.  We got our guests as payment to scrupulously mark our dishes for quality, and several came screaming out as successes.  The smoked trout bruschettas with Hollandaise sauce was one and the mini Mere Fish Farm trout cakes was another.  Not all received rapturous applause - colcannon will not be making it to our tables full time.

We even got our pictures in the Dorset Life magazine on their social pages.  My paisley purple shirt and bowler hat combo makes everyone else look fantastic.  Charlie Barkshire, who was shortly to open the Grosvenor after 28 months refurbishing the place, was there.  Best of luck to him – we can’t wait to have it open and this end of eth High Street vibrant with visitors again.

The menu went live and we are now on our third seasonal version.  Come and try it with us.

Feast of Dorset

The Turnbulls Cheese Tent & Museum Wines

Turnbulls will presenting local cheese producers in the Cheese Tent this year at the Feast of Dorset (19th & 20th September) at Deans Court near Wimborne. Cheeses for tasting will be drawn from many of our south west counties as well as Dorset to give a full display, making every fromagophile’s mouth water.

Alongside our cheeses we are planning to present a selection of Alex Boon’s reds, whites and pinks from his company Museum Wines. Alex will be working with us to to match wines to our local West Country cheeses to give a taste experience that is more than the sum of its parts. Coupled with the Somerset Cider Brandy Company's famous Somerset Pomona, some cider from Perry’s and even some classic bitter from Keystone Brewery, it will be a mouth-watering autumnal food festival to remember.

Come along and find out: click here for more infomration.

What has gone before...

Feast of Dorset, 2009

For those that missed it, the Feast of Dorset was a fantastic success.  Visitors took away with them, from us alone, nearly six stone in gorgonzola, nearly eight stone on Montgomery cheddar, and much more in other cheeses, biscuits, chutneys and wine.  The weather was beautiful, warm, with a hint of rain at one point which quickly passed. 

The Feast was held over the weekend of 19th & 20th September at Deans Court, Wimborne.  The house has been in the same family since before time began, the current man of title being Sir William Hanham.  His grounds are beautiful - look at www.feastofdorset.co.uk for more information.  I don’t know if they will be having another event this year, but I hope they will.  Good atmosphere, and well organised, with events such as beekeeping and falconry alongside food stalls and beer tents.

Unusually for these type fo festivals, there was an evening event on the Saturday, which included music and sit down dinners provided by Alex Boon of the King John at Tollard Royal and the Fish Club.  After a hard day’s work selling the weight of small children in cheese, Alex’s spread was an elixir.  If you come across the Fish Club’s fish & chips restaurants and takeaways in London (there is one on St John’s Hill opposite a flat I lived at for a while) try them.  I have not visited better.

For those staying over night Feast had put aside a field for camping, so I parked up my landrover and unfolded the tent on the roof.  After all the guests had left, the bonfire of all the cutting and clearings was lit like a beacon to the old life.  It was mostly band members and stall holders who had come from afar, and the fire, food, wine, music and dancing made a bacchanalian mix.  I think the bloke who played guitar was called Tarka, but I might have dreamt that.  Either way I made a silent vow to learn the instrument.  I do remember a sausage maker grabbing a six-string and singing six verses of “Have you ever caught your knackers in a mousetrap?” – a new song to me and the implied pain makes it hard to forget.

One of the best nights I had had for a while, and I did not climb up to my bed until near four.  Not exactly perfect preparation for another day at the stall, but hey, you only live once.

Thank you to all the team who helped me, including Jilly, Mandy, Eloise, Ella and Hannah.  As always, Jilly was genius, and a particular thank you to Eloise who had not worked with us before.  She was thrown in at the deep end and swam like a fish.  It was my first introduction to Wimborne.  If I had more money it would be a great place to open a second Turnbulls.

Charlie T's six weeks in Tanzania

With personal circumstances moving him on, Charlie took a break to catch a breath and take part in a digital mapping project to put Africa’s game parks onto the internet in a huge continent wide catalogue.  The Process is being run by Charlie’s brother March Turnbull through MAPA Project in Cape Town.

Anyway, Charlie had a great time, as can be seen in the following clip…

For those further interested in MAPA Project, click here.

Charlie was judging again this at the Le Concours Général Agricole this year in Paris.  These awards are for French products only but being the French they consider them the most prestigious in the World.  It is a bit like the Americans and their World Series in baseball.

Charlie was invited to judge some of the cheeses for export, the only section where non-French judges are permitted.  He says the Mont d’Or was fantastic but the epoisse was sublime.

Charlie T judging for the World Cheese Awards

Charlie was again one of the 170 main judges and on the final supreme judging panel of 12 judges for the 2008 World Cheese Awards in Dublin in October.  With over 2000 cheese to get through, even committed cheesophiles struggled, but Charlie came through proud and a few pounds heavier.  He thinks he tasted over 120 cheese that day.

Sitting between Mark Hix and Antony Worrall Thompson for the “dramatic conclusion” Charlie found the judging was as enjoyable as it was serious.  The final cheese, Queso Arico curado pimentón, just nosed ahead at the last minute. A hard goats’ cheese rubbed in paprika and a speciality of the Canary Islands, it is dry, sweet and spicy.  A good winner.

Click through to the World Cheese Awards 2008 here

Charlie T judging at the Great Taste Awards

In July 2008 at the Great Taste Awards supreme panel judging, Charlie Turnbull sat alongside Mark Hix, Nigel Barden, Alex James, Tom Parker Bowles, Charles Campion and others to establish the best tasting foods of 2008.

The supremee champion was a Blackcurrant & Kirsch Sorbet from Beckleberry’s (Artisan Foods)although the More? Muddees brownies from from More? The Artisan Bakery were outstanding, and our local Otter Brewery prodiuced a cracker in its Otter Head Beer. 

Click through to the Great Taste Awards here

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