Image: Woodbridge Farm www.dorsetblue.com
Large rounds, up to 12 months old, white with blue, not greenish, veining. Slightly crumbly, thick irregular rind.
The word 'vinny' (or 'finney') just means 'mouldy'.
Blue Vinny was one of the cheeses mentioned in Monty Python's 'Cheese Shop' sketch, which was odd, as that was in 1971, during the unfortunate twenty-year period during which Vinny was not manufactured.
Vinney formerly had a reputation for being hard in the extreme, a story related in Jo Draper's 'Dorset Food' goes "Man had a Blue Vinney cheese that was too hard t'eat, wanted wheelbarrow wheel, zoo he drilled a hole droo the idle of the cheese an' putt en on. Ader fifteen years hard wear the wheelbarrow fell t'pieces, and 'ee sold the wheel for woold iron."