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On the third weekend of September in 1991, a little medieval town at the foothill of the North Western Italian Alps, Bra - not-so-affectionately known as the ugly little sister to truffle town Alba - held the first ever Cheese. Cheese is a biennial food festival that celebrates the wondrous diversity of cheese. For three days the cobbled streets of Bra are transformed into a giant cheese shop. Cheese makers and affineurs from around the world flock to this otherwise quiet little town, transforming it into a Mecca for turophiles worldwide, It is a typically Italian experience, idealistic and romantic while seemingly coming aside at edges; everything has this beautiful slap dash approach tinged to it. It is a kaleidoscopic wheel of dairy, but most importantly through this chaos exists a reimagining of community: every two years, for five days over that third weekend of September, there is such a deep excitement for these traditions that it can only inspire hope.
Cheese began as a movement in defence of raw milk and the cheese traditions that can only be continued as a result of raw milk production. Raw milk cheesemaking is a culture - one of forward thinking creativity and genre-bending artisanship. While the festival doesn’t revolve around only raw milk cheeses, it was initially inspired by the flavour, tradition, texture and cultural relevance of the practice.
I thought these festivals were a fragment of my time in the Northern Hemisphere, and that the deeply exiting and inspiring1 conversations about farming techniques, animal breeds, cross breeding, soil, landscape, climate, and how artisanal flair can shift and change a dairy product into something life changing were just a remnant of another time - out of sight, out of mind. I was wrong.
A few weeks ago I was at Mould, a festival set up by Revel to promote and build community within the artisanal cheese-making world of Australia. Don’t get me wrong, they are also throwing these events to make money. From what I understand Revel - who, according to their website, founded Mould along with other festivals Oinofilia.Wine, Sake Matsuri, Meat Your Maker, Gauchito Gil’s Malbec Day, Game of Phones, Pinot Palooza, & Wine Day Out- was recently bought by Vino Mofo. Smart cross collaboration if you look at it from a positioning perspective.
I was at Mould helping my brother. Jack started his beekeeping company Bee One Third a decade ago and since that point has not just been dedicated to championing and promoting urban beekeeping around South East Queensland, but has inspired a network of young beekeepers to work towards a more sustainable future through urban agriculture and apiary. Most importantly, he pulls out of those hives some of the most diverse and landscape-driven honey in Australia. It is indicative of place, but like terroir, it is also indicative of the specific landscape, the climate, the vintage and the bloom. If you haven’t seen what he is doing or tasted his honey, stop wasting time, click here and get onto it.
While raw milk cheese is - or at least until the last few weeks, was - illegal in Australia2 there is a burgeoning set of dairy farmers and cheese makers that have been pushing the boundaries of what’s possible within the restrictions3. Mould showcases these cheesemakers in an environment more akin to a festival than a trade show. Not unlike Cheese In Bra every two years, Mould is a party. It’s a ticketed event - three days in Brisbane and Melbourne and two days in Sydney - this weekend. If you haven’t bought tickets, buy them now. Go here. Don’t waste time. You get a four hour window to taste and enjoy with a limited set of tickets per session to limit the crowd, the clutter and the lines. It’s a tasting show where you can buy direct from the farmer, in conversation with the cheesemonger, walk 20 metres and buy some honey to smother that cheese in and then drink wine. A lot of wine.
These are my picks. The favourite cheeses I ate and loved are, for various reasons, attached to the nostalgia and romance of my Northern Hemisphere cheese consumption. The memories I have, attached to those first experiences of what was actually possible: visiting a weird, entirely neurodiverse affinuer in the Swiss alps ageing cheese from sheep whose names he knew and spoke of with deep affection; the first day working at Neils Yard Dairy tasting St Judes and Lincolnshire poacher and Montgomery's cheddar and stinking bishop and goats curd, real fucking goats curd, and Stilton! Fucking Stilton4; and the first time I tasted raw milk cheese and had that moment of realisation that it wasn’t just rubbery goop from Coles or homogenised bullshit from a generic place called ‘Europe’.
That is to say, if you go to Mould, eat these cheeses first.
1 - The Pines Kiama. All of it. All of it. All of it. Don’t waste time. Go straight to these cheeses made from the milk of a motley bunch of mismatched, crossbred cows. Somehow each cheese has such a deep sense of animal, a deep sense of place and landscape and flora and fauna. They are wild and pure and fucking exciting.
2 - Red Cow Organics. Red cows in Tasmania. Red cows in fucking Tasmania producing milk that is being turned into a timeless Gruyere - cave aged - that rivals some of the most elegant in the world, some of the best in Switzerland. Red cows are the cows they use to make the most extraordinary Parmigiano Reggiano. Vacche Rosse were on the brink of extinction until they were dragged back from the edge through the insistence and importance of the Slow Food movement in Italy. They are rare, rare as they come and there are some in Tasmania. Eat this cheese.
3 - Milawa dairy. Rob is doing something remarkable at Milawa. He’s the new head cheese maker, a bootlegger, a wild weird, excitable, beautiful legend. Look, not everything is overwhelmingly exciting, sure. But fuck me. His washed ring, cave aged blue is somehow reminiscent of the unctuous5 qualities of the Gorgonzola dolce from Giollito in Bra, Piedmonte - without question, one of the most respected cheese shops in Northern Italy. You will buy a quarter wheel, like my non-culinary girlfriend did with passionate gastronomic impulsivity. It will change your life.
There are more, but it’s these cheese makers that really filled me with hope and excitement. They are doing extraordinary things, especially given the fact that they aren’t allowed to produce with raw milk.
That will change though. As of a few weeks ago it is now possible to import, and subsequently sell, raw milk cheese in Australia. It won’t be long until there are producers all over the country exploring the uncharted territory of raw milk cheese. As Australians we have this weird inherent drive to push the boundaries of what’s possible. From the pool to the plate, there is some strange drive, some weird underdog ‘don’t give a fuckery / just you want and see’ attitude that affords us not only creative brilliance but somewhat of an unholy defiance to beat the odds. This will certainly be the case with cheese now raw milk is on the table.
That being said, you would be a fool to miss this Mould festival. It’s the last one where the brilliance and creativity of artisans is on display with such clarity within what will soon be considered archaic rules about Raw milk cheese. The Government has ensured that everything is pegged against Australian cheese-makers, but thanks to the that defiant ‘just you fucking wait’ attitude, the cheese makers at Mould are making cheese that is as wild and interesting and emotionally charged as the best in the world.
Go. Buy a ticket. Eat some cheese.
Look, these might not be inspiring and exciting for everyone but believe you me, when you taste something that is utterly transportive, texturally and aromatically in the form of cheese it does something to you. It is a wild fucking process of taking milk and affording its transformation with unique attention to not only the process but also the cow, the land, the treatment, the environment internally, the tradition, the handling, the washing, the drying, the ageing and the packaging. It is remarkable that from something taken so for granted in our current food chains can be transformed into infinite iterations of expression. It is life affirming to talk to the people who have this skill, who hold this talent, who have laboured and toiled and worked so hard to achieve something so beautiful. Yes, they are farmers. Yes, they are cheesemakers. It is an isolating and endless job and anyone who does it loves it to their core. To share that love, to hear that excitement, to understand the depth with which they consider this process and its implications… it’s a fucking beautiful thing.
It has been illegal to sell raw milk as a product in Australia. In the past friends would go to the pharmacy to buy raw milk for bathing as it was considered enriching for the skin and the soul. Whether or not they chose to drink it was really up to them. I can’t stand by and say I know where they are now and I wouldn’t feel comfortable naming them - just in case things didn’t go quite as planned. Raw milk is delicious, it is such a shame it was illegal in Australia for so long and in line with that the sale of any raw milk products was illegal. Until recently. Finally raw milk cheeses will be allowed into our shores. This means that some of the best cheeses in the world (many of the best cheeses in the world nay MOST of the best cheeses in the world, fuck it I’ll say it - all of the best cheese in the world), are soon to be available to Australian consumers. For a list of new cheeses arriving soon, click here.
I won’t name them here - apart from Bruny Island Cheese Co who are known for their unpasteurised cheeses - but there are also a few raw cheese producers in Tasmania saying fuck you to regulation and government oversight.
A couple of things you need to know about Neils Yard Dairy - insider tips - for if you ever go or for if you do go and don’t yet know. If you wind up at the slate at that big board of cheese it’s within their policy to let you taste everything. In fact, if you have waited to get there the whole idea is that you DO taste. The want everyone to be able to understand what it is they love even if they can’t afford to buy anything. It is about championing cheese. It about protecting tradition. It is about the FACT that there is something in everything they source and sell that is part of something else, that transcends. They want you to eat it and they want you to know that you can. So go. Go and taste. If you buy nothing, it doesn’t matter. If you buy $10 worth of cheese, it doesn’t matter. If you buy $5000 worth of cheese - which you have to believe people do - it doesn’t matter. The fact that you are eating cheese and understanding its diversity. That’s the point. Also, if you work there you can eat as much as you like and you are almost guaranteed a wild discount for the rest of your days. Highly recommended.
I have a deep deep distaste for this word. It’s important to make this clear. I would not use it unless absolutely necessary.
Words by Daniel Wilson
Daniel has a Masters in Food Culture from The University of Gastronomic Science in Pollenzo, Italy. He is a writer, a chef, and a recovering restaurateur.