Enough board for an evening

Two or three cheeses is a tasting; this is a board. The Christmas terrine and the Millers biscuits stay, and the cheese widens into something you can leave out from six o’clock onwards without it running dry.

Who it is for

This is the hamper for the household that puts a board out and leaves it out – the in-laws on Christmas Eve, the neighbours who come round on the twenty-seventh, the office that wants one thing everybody can pick at. Cheese is the one Christmas gift nobody re-gifts. The wine is chosen for the food in the hamper rather than picked off a price list, and it is a grower’s bottle rather than a supermarket label.

Who makes it

Clos Saint Sozy work in the Lot, in the south-west of France, in the traditional way. Millers have been baking in Britain since 1875. We import these ourselves rather than buying through a wholesaler, which is why the hamper costs what it does. You can read how the protected designations work at the European Commission.

Packing and delivery

We pack this hamper in a medium matte-black gift box with a printed ivory-cream sleeve. Everything is packed by hand in Worcestershire on the day it leaves us, and nothing is made up in advance and left sitting in a warehouse. Order early for Christmas – December delivery slots fill from the middle of November, and the week before Christmas always goes first. We deliver across mainland UK and can send the hamper straight to the recipient with a handwritten card and no prices anywhere in the parcel. See the rest of the range on our Christmas gift hampers page.

How to serve it

Take the cheese out of the fridge a good hour before anyone eats it – cold cheese tastes of very little. Cut the soft cheeses in wedges from the centre and leave the hard ones whole with a knife beside them. Foie gras and terrine want to come out of the fridge fifteen minutes beforehand and be cut with a warm blade, onto toast or brioche rather than a cracker that fights them.