We’ve been thinking a lot about cheese recently. Well, when don’t we? But we’re getting to that stage of the year when we’re planning our Christmas cheeses, so we have to start thinking not only about which cheeses to buy for Christmas, but how much?

It’s not easy. Unless you’ve experienced the pandemonium at Mortimer & Bennett at Chiswick, it’s hard to visualize just how much we sell in the final few days running up to Christmas. People walking out with whole full-sized Stiltons, entire Bries de Meaux, huge chunks of cheddar. It’s a sight to behold. At least it is from my vantage point, safely protected by a large fridge. I wouldn’t want to be on your side of the counter – it’s mayhem.

So you have my sympathy. And if you’re going to go through that to make sure you have the best cheeses you can get hold of at Christmas, it’s our responsibility to make sure that you get just that: the cheeses you want, in the best condition they can be.

So we have to start planning now. First on the list is our three-year-old Comte from Fort St Antoine. Every year, Marcel Petite selects a few of his cheeses to mature on to this venerable age. Each of these cheeses has to be perfect: there must be no blemish, crack or mark on the rind, or the cheese will not survive the lengthy maturation. Generally, only about thirty make it to the final stage.

And we’ve got two of them.

If you’re a fan of the caramel sweetness of a classic Comte, imagine a drier, richer, more intense version of it, then double it. At least. It’s no surprise that we start taking orders for it from about the end of November. With a tawny port and a handful of nuts, it makes Christmas for me. I can live without the turkey. Without the Comte, I’d wonder if the rest of the season was worth the bother.

We’ll open the order book in late November, and we’ll be taking orders up to December 15. After that, you’ll have to join the scrum.