Monday 24 July 2006

Woodside Cheese Wrights Virgo

Based in the Adelaide Hills (in South Australia) Woodside Cheese Wrights was started in 1994 by Paula Jenkin and subsequently purchased in 1998 by Coriole Vineyards. They produce both cow and goat milk cheese that are hand made and free from artificial preservatives or stabilisers. Batch Pasteurisation is used which is a slower pasteurisation method - it's said to be more gentle on the milk structure and results in the retention of the seasonal variances of the milk.

woodside cheese wrights virgo©haalo

Cheese Maker - Woodside Cheese Wrights
Cheese Name - Virgo
Location - Woodside, Adelaide Hills, South Australia

woodside cheese wrights virgo©haalo

The cheese is extremely soft, almost fragile - there's a very light, white mould that continues to develop as the cheese ages.

woodside cheese wrights virgo©haalo

Next to the rind sits an almost runny layer, the cheese becomes firmer but retains a curd like appearance as you move to the centre.

woodside cheese wrights virgo©haalo

This does have a pronounced goat cheese tang - it's sharp but the flavours are quite clean. It's exceptionally moist and very creamy in the mouth with low acid levels.

Compared to the Holy Goat Mature Veloute it's much more stronger in flavour - not a cheese to start with if you are a goat cheese beginner.

Originally published here

Sunday 16 July 2006

Holy Goat Mature Veloute


There's a lot of good things said about our produce so I thought I might explore some of the items we should justifiably be proud of.

Cheese is a slightly contentious product, centred upon the debate about raw milk cheese - here in Australia we aren't allowed to produce cheese from raw milk and up until recently there has been bans on the importation of raw milk cheese (exceptions to this were the hard-cooked curd cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano). The laws have been relaxed a little and we can now get some raw milk cheese, it's still a risky venture for the importers. Lovers of Roquefort know the pain.

With the limitations of the production of certain cheese, we still produce some fine dairy products. For my first cheese, I'll be showing an organic goat's cheese produced here in my home state of Victoria.



Cheese Maker - Holy Goat
Cheese Name - Mature Veloute
Location - Sutton Grange Organic Farm, Victoria

Hand made in the French-style from an Organic Certified (Level A) Goat herd. Slow lactic acid fermentation combines with hand ladling into individual forms where the cheese is allowed to drain purely under the effect of gravity.



Veloute is described as a "barrel shaped cheese with a white mould surface and delicate flavour at 3 weeks which becomes more complex and nutty as it matures between 3-10 weeks"





I particularly enjoy the mushroom aroma and taste from the white mould rind (very similar to Camembert), there's a bit of that goat cheese tang at the back of the palate but it's wrapped in the creaminess of the cheese.

Originally published here