The Cheeses - Bruny Island Cheese Co.

Bruny Island Cheese Co. is owned and operated by Nick Haddow, who after almost 10 years of working with specialist cheese in many different countries around the world, settled on Bruny Island in Southern Tasmania to start making cheese for himself.

"The cheeses I make are very much the product of my travels and training throughout the great cheese producing regions of France, Italy, Spain and the UK. They are the cheeses I love to make and eat. They are also uniquely Tasmanian.
I strive to be both an artisan and a traditionalist, who recognises that great cheese was made for centuries before modern technology played a role and I believe passionately in the old way of making and maturing cheese. For me, cheesemaking is a pursuit of integrity, authenticity and flavour."

o.d.o.
milk:	cow	type:	fresh, marinated in olive oil
It stands for One Day Old and that's what it is; a simple, fresh cheese that relies inherently on the quality of our milk to deliver its flavour. Eat it on good bread with olive oil, crumble it through hot pasta or grill it on a pizza. It has a relatively low salt content and a strong lactic acid flavour. ODO is marinated in olive oil with fresh garlic, roasted red capsicum and herbs.
otto
milk:	cow	type:	fresh, wrapped in prosciutto
This cheese celebrates two of Italy's most ancient of gastronomic cornerstones - cheese and cured pork. It is a simple fresh cheese wrapped in locally made Prosciutto. It is meant to be cooked first before eating. After baking in a hot oven for 15 minutes, serve with a simple salad and a glass of local wine.
saint
milk:	cow	type:	soft, white mould
In the central plateau of France there are a number of cheeses that are all named after the local Saints. Like our Saint, they are all surface ripened, soft oozy cheeses with a light bloom on the rind - not a thick carpet of single strain white mould found on more commercial cheeses. This cheese can be eaten younger, when the inside is still firm and the flavour more delicate, or wait until the curd breaks down completely and the flavour gets more pungent.
gabriel
milk:	goat	type:	soft, white mould
When most people think of goat's cheese they instantly think of very fresh curd - what a shame, because it does not end there. In Biblical terms Gabriel was The Messenger Angel and we hope that this cheese can deliver the message that goat's milk lends itself beautifully to more developed cheeses, such as this. Our milk comes from a herd of Toggenburg goats which graze above the Huon River. The milk is handled very gently; gravity fed, never pumped, before being turned into cheese. The light bloom of mixed moulds develops on about the sixth day and the cheese can be eaten anywhere between 14 and 40 days old.
1792
milk:	cow	type:	soft, washed rind on huon pine
It was the year the French first set foot on Tasmanian soil and this very French, very pungent little cheese, matured on aromatic Huon Pine boards, celebrates what could have been. It is made in the traditional method - its pinky-orange rind the result of being regularly hand-washed in brine, encouraging the surface bacteria that give this cheese its complex flavour and aroma.
oen
milk:	cow	type:	soft, pinot washed in vine leaves
OEN (from the word oenology) is a true labour of love; a washed-rind, cow's milk cheese, washed in Pinot Noir before being wrapped in vine leaves to be carefully matured. The vine leaves protect the cheese and create a moist surface which encourages the flavour development. When mature, OEN's rind becomes pungent and the texture becomes soft and fudgey.
tom
milk:	cow	type:	hard, natural rind
Tom is a simple guy. He is in the tradition of the Tomme cheeses made in the mountainous French Savoie region. He is not complicated by tricky cheese making or complex maturation techniques - a cheese of simple integrity to be left on the table and eaten everyday. On the outside he has a natural grey rind that develops over five months of ageing. On the inside, he is really just great milk. Tom is a fast maturing hard cheese that shows both freshness and developed characteristics. He gets along famously with everyone. Tom likes being rubbed.
lewis
milk:	goat	type:	hard, natural rind
You don't see it done all that often in Australia, but goat's milk makes terrific hard cheeses. The fresh herbal notes of the milk develop into mild nutty flavours as the cheese matures. Lewis, which takes it's name from our beloved house goat (which in turn takes its name from the guy who was about to shoot him) is our goat's milk version of our popular Tom cheese. It is fast to develop its great flavour and retains a lovely moisture in the pale curd. The rind contributes to the cheese's complexity and (like Tom's) gets rubbed every three days throughout its life to encourage its development.
the bastard
milk:	cow & goat	type:	hard, natural rind
When nineteenth century English poet Robert William Service asked "What care I who your father was (T'was better no to know)" he was probably not talking about cheese - although he did spend his youth working as a "cow juice jerker". Our Bastard also has slightly dubious parentage - made from a mixture of cow's & goat's milk left over from our other cheeses. This sort of thing was done all the time in the old world - most cheesemakers had a couple of cows, a few sheep and half dozen goats so all the milk was thrown in together. The result is a deliciously coloured cheese, a pastel shade of yellow. The flavour is wonderful, robust from the cow's milk, delicate from the goat's milk. A great wine cheese.
the pressings
milk:	cow	type:	hard, pinot noir pressings
This cheese is one which I have wanted to make for ages but because it relies upon grape pressings from the wine vintage I had to wait. Our mates at Bruny Island Wines pressed the last of their pinot noir in March and it was a chance meeting on the ferry with Richard Wooley, the vigneron, that resulted in a couple of buckets of pressings being dropped off the next day. The cheese is in fact pretty similar to Tom except that when the cheese was a week old we rubbed the new rind with the grape pressings. This definitely imparted a flavour into the cheese which makes it even better with wine than it usually is!
C2
milk:	cow	type:	hard, cooked curd
C2 is the sort of cheese found throughout the mountains of France and northern Italy. A classic cooked curd cheese made in traditional wooden hoops. C2 matures for about 6 months, during which time it develops a sweet aroma and a mildly nutty flavour. Lactic acid plays a strong role in C2's characteristic flavour - the sweetness gives way to an almost cheddar like flavour on the end-palate. The rind is wiped every week to encourage the surface bacteria that provide this cheese with much of its robust integrity.
barney
milk:	cow	type:	blue, firm bodied
It is another name for 'a good blue'. The problem I have with most modern blue cheeses is that they are pretty terrible with wine - creamy, salty, acrid and palate cloying. Barney is a bit more friendly. He was inspired by Stilton - the real stuff, not the stuff passed off as Stilton today. His crusty rind is the key to his personality. He has a firm body with only a hint of blue which makes him a winner with a lot of red wines.
pan
milk:	goat	type:	blue
Pan is a cheese I have just started to play around with. It is a firm textured goat's milk blue which is very in keeping with the style of blue cheese which we like to eat. I only make this cheese at the start of the goat's lactation to take advantage of the incredible spring milk. It is has been matured in a special foil (which is used for Roquefort) that has allowed a surface flora to develop and add an even greater depth of flavour. The palate is both sweet and savoury with a nuttiness that is rare in blue cheeses.