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We’ve tasted more than a dozen cheeses when I hesitantly bite into a crumbly flake of Dorset Blue Vinny, a frightening-looking fromage if ever there was one. “That’s good with Burgundy,” says Rhuaridh Buchanan, a cheesemonger at Paxton & Whitfield, who, upon catching me trying to conceal a wince, quickly offers a milder version of the veined beast. It’s classic Roquefort, one of more than 300 cheeses in the Jermyn Street shop. A third sliver, this time a Harbourne Blue from Devon, is surprisingly mild, the anti-blue blue cheese.

Terror is as intuitive to cheese as terroir. In his hilarious and insightful essay, Fear of Formaggio, Jeffrey Steingarten debunks the belief that eating cheese causes heart disease. I’m here to conquer a different phobia. I love cheese; yet, like many, the prospect of putting together a cheeseboard of curdled specimens leaves me cold as the bone-rattling 7C maturing room beneath the shop.

When Rhuaridh, 28, wants to impress his girlfriend, he’s more likely to design a cheeseboard for her than order a bouquet of roses. Sexy, fashion conscious and with a charming Aberdeen accent, Rhuaridh surveys the shop’s impressive spread with sheer confidence. It’s easy to see why the cheesemongers, up against edgier heavyweights La Fromagerie and Neal’s Yard Dairy, persuaded him to turn down a job at the fabled Per Se Restaurant in New York, instead offering him the chance to consult for various restaurants in London.

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Why cheese? Ask Rhuaridh, and he shrugs as if any other career is simply out of the question. He can’t contain his passion for the stinky stuff. “The variety and complexity of flavours, how it’s a growing, living thing, is really interesting.” It must be love. Between tasting with customers and sampling new products, Rhuaridh consumes about 300 grams of cheese a day.

I’m quite dismayed when I’m told there are no rules, only guidelines, for cheeseboards. “It’s not my cheeseboard, it’s your cheeseboard,” he chirps from behind a mountain range of Pecorino, Manchego and Crockhamdale (all brebis, or ewe’s milk cheeses). But what you must do is taste, and taste a lot.

“Cheese is fun!” beams Rhuaridh, picking up on my apprehension. Besides the cheerful business of tasting, building a good cheeseboard is a matter of talking. Ask for help in the shop; describe what you like and don’t like. A good cheesemonger will listen and guide, ultimately allowing you to be the cheeseboard designer.

Back to those guidelines. Simply, keep it varied. You want a balance of textures from hard to soft, a spectrum of flavours from mild to strong and a mix of milk varieties. Cow, goat and ewe are all up for grabs, but buffalo is best saved for pizza. And as much as he likes sharp cheddar, he’d rather have it in a good old ploughman’s lunch. “Stay in the middle zone of mild to strong. Nothing too quiet and timid, but nothing too fearsome and striking, either.”

Suddenly, something stirs by the Brie de Meux. Rhuaridh laughs and says the place, here since 1896, is haunted. The Stinking Bishop himself, perhaps?

At last, I get a magic formula. Providing the necessary balance to your cheeseboard is easy when you implement the key four guidelines: hard, soft, blue, goat. Then, just “throw in a few bits for fun.” There’s that word again.

We decide on an after-dinner cheese course for an imaginary six people. Presumably we’re going to enjoy quite a bit of full-bodied red wine before my masterpiece arrives, so I’ll be a bit bold with our selections. Rhuaridh introduces me to Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire, a crumbly cow’s milk cheese. With all due respect to the missus, it’s a bit too salty even for my savoury-inclined taste buds.

On to Marcel Petite. This smooth Swiss Comte, also cow’s, is an obvious choice, but now that I’m losing my inhibitions as I take another sip of pretend Bordeaux, I want something off the eaten path. Enter Berkswell, a sheep’s milk cheese from, well, Berkshire. It has a lovely sweet flavour with a slightly grainy bite. Bingo.

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