The top 10 Australian cheeses

Billy the goat cheese

This is a guest post by Laurie Gutteridge. He runs the Taste Cheese website and blog and the splendid cheese room at Innocent Bystander in the Yarra Valley. You can also follow him on Twitter as taste_cheese. (If you have something on value to say I’m open to guest postings – send an email. Ed)

My criteria when looking for a cheese? It starts with the understanding that a holistic view encompassing everything from the farming practises right through to the final cheese is vital. So many factors influence the final product – the soil, the grass, the weather, the milk, the cheesemaker, the cheesemakers decisions, maturation conditions, packaging, distribution and retailing.

I look for unique cheeses that go some way to demonstrating these influences, rather than bland, derivative cheeses that can never be as good as the originals they aim to replicate.

Often such unique cheeses will not be awarded medals at shows, because they don’t fit into preconceived categories of how a cheese ‘should’ be, whereas the bland ones are often technically sound and are rewarded as a result.

This is an ever changing list, as every batch is different, and with smaller artisanal and farmhouse producers there is significant variation seasonally too.

Have a look through my old blogposts and ‘webisodes’ for more information on these producers and their cheeses.

Holy Goat ‘La Luna’
Needs no introduction, having developed a cult following. In my mind Carla & Ann-Marie are Australia’s best cheesemakers, and La Luna is Australia’s most consistently great cheese. Absolute attention to detail, from the land the animals graze to the packaging of the final cheese. Immaculate.

Fromart ‘Devils Foot’
Unique hard cheese handmade with the milk of a single herd of Jersey cows by Christian Nobel in Eudlo, Queensland. Well balanced, sweet and savoury flavours are complemented with a creamy but open texture.

Tongola ‘Billy’
Impeccable farmhouse cheese made by Hans & Esther with the milk of their 30 organically reared Toggenburg goats. Beautiful rind formation (you can tell it’s made by Swiss expats) that looks and smells ‘alive’ instead of deadened by over-zealous use of chlorine based cleaning products. Strong, nutty, farmy goat’s milk flavours.

Piano Hill ‘Ironstone’
Ok, fair enough, the Brown family stopped making this bio-dynamic cheese nearly 2 years ago, but this was an example of a totally unique Australian farmhouse cheese. The 9 month cheeses were creamy and sweet, but if you found the 18 month cheese your month would be entertained by complex, butterscotch, caramel and fruity flavours and a dense texture speckled with the crunch of pure amino acid clusters. A tragic loss for Australian farmhouse cheesemaking.

Bruny Island ‘Oen’
Nick Haddow is one of the few Australian artisanal cheesemakers actively fighting to be able to make raw milk cheese and has achieved that with his C2. His cheeses have unique flavours that you won’t find anywhere else – the Oen is washed in a mix of brine and a local pinot noir, before being wrapped in pinot noir vine leaves.

Shaw River Buffalo Mozzarella
No, it doesn’t achieve the heights of Italian DOP buffalo mozzarella, but this farmhouse producer gives it a good shot. One bite into the ‘crayfish’ like texture releases the lactic, milky sweet flavours.

Healy’s ‘Pyengana’
One of Australia’s oldest cheeses, Pyengana has been going for about 100 years. Still made using the traditional stirred-curd recipe, it is a cheddar-style cheese. Still in its 16 kilo, cloth wrapped wheels, since 1995 they have had to pasteurise the milk and now use a proprietary blend of DVI cultures. A new cheesemaker started 2 years ago, so the recipe is changing, but from what I hear some good looking cheeses are coming our way.

Ballycroft ‘Broch’
Tracy at Ballycroft must be the smallest commercial cheesemaker in Australia. Her 50 litre vat is filled with buckets of fresh milk from one local farm and almost everything she makes is sold at the local Barossa farmers market. She is actively trying to legally make a raw milk cheese and makes unique cheeses to her own recipes. The Broch is a hard, natural rinded cheese with nutty, gruyere style flavours.

Barossa Valley ‘Le Petit Prince’
This unusual brick shaped washed rind goat’s milk cheese is made by Victoria McClurg in Angaston. When the milk is good and the bacteria in the maturation room is strong this cheese can develop a wonderful two tone effect – the lactic, tart firm interior is balanced with the more savoury, complex creamy breakdown closer to the rind.

Holy Goat ‘Pandora’
I had to throw in another Holy Goat cheese, partly because I was struggling to think of another producer that I am really excited by, and partly because it is another completely unique Australian farmhouse cheese. Slice off the top to reveal the gooey goodness inside!