A semi-hard goats cheese made in South Australia has been named Champion Cheese.
It’s the first time a goats cheese has won the Royal Agricultural Society’s top award.
One judge said hard cheeses of this kind are “unusual and rare”.
For the first time in 150 years of judging, the Annual Trophy for the Champion Cheese of Show at the Royal Agricultural Society’s dairy awards has been awarded to a goats cheese.
Little Yarra Cheese Company, based on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, took out the big prize with its Lilyarra Aran semi-hard goats cheese.
Cheesemaker Gerard Callinan said the win came as a massive surprise.
“I’m really humbled. I’m thrilled and I didn’t expect it,”
Cheesemaker Gerard Callinan from Little Yarra Cheese Company. (Supplied: Gerard Callinan.)
Mr Callinan said the Aran cheese was a “unique variety” developed from his own recipe.
“It’s a naturally rinded cheese and that means that it starts off being salted to toughen the rind of it and then washed with a special brine solution and turned regularly,” he said.
“It develops some earthy characters which flow into the cheese.”
Mr Callinan said goats eat a variety of pastures and legumes which provided additional different flavours.
“Some of the native plants, trees, bushes, they get a varied feed that flows through the different parts of the year and I think that’s where goats are unique.”
Head judge Tiffany Beer said the complex flavours of the cheese and the craftsmanship shown in the cheesemaking were the reasons the goats cheese won.
“The goats cheese that won the best cheese was truly exceptional, it was a hard goats cheese, and that is quite different and it is quite unusual and rare.”
The winning cheese was described as “truly exceptional” by judges. (Supplied: Gerard Callinan)
Judging a ‘difficult task’
Other awards were handed out for categories like best white milk, best cheddar, best ice cream and champion dessert.
The awards were announced as part of the Sydney Royal Cheese & Dairy Produce Show in the lead-up to this year’s Royal Easter Show.
Ms Beer said judging across a huge range in the dairy cabinet was a difficult task.
“There is enormous variety within the dairy products so obviously we have milk, butter, cream, yoghurt and dairy dessert,” she said.
“It is particularly difficult when you are judging between different champions, this year particularly, because of the quality overall … it was very hard to judge.”
Ms Beer said there was a lot of variety between the cheeses alone.
“There are cheddar cheeses and what we call speciality cheeses — white mould camembert and brie, often the alpine style cheeses,” she said.
“You have the softer Italian style, the Middle Eastern flavoured cheeses, and then you have the non-cow cheeses like goat, sheep, buffalo and camel.”
A sweet win
One of the other big winners was Shuddh Dairy, in Sydney’s west, whose dessert Shuddh Rasmalai was singled out for high praise.
The dessert consists of spongy cottage cheese dumplings soaked in a sweet, creamy milk syrup infused with cardamom and nuts.
Founder Harman Singh said it took a long time to get his award-winning dessert recipe just right.
“It took us almost three years … we are very pleased.”
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