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Rows of cheese wheels in the maturing room.
A small artisan factory in Gippsland makes some of the world’s best blue cheese.
STORY + PHOTOS RICKY FRENCH | OUTBACK MAGAZINE
It’s not a secret, nor would you call it a confession, when master cheesemaker Barry Charlton reveals that he didn’t actually make the cheese recently judged Australia’s best, even though he was happy to accept the award. Accolades are not new to the owner of Berrys Creek Gourmet Cheese. There are nearly as many trophies in the cabinet at his small cheese factory near Fish Creek in South Gippsland, Vic, as there are wheels of his prized blue cheeses in the maturing room.
But as Barry explains, cheesemaking is a team effort. He’s proud to have trained his small team of artisan cheesemakers to such a standard that he can now leave them to it. “We have a magnificent team,” Barry says. “They’re so passionate about what they do, and can now run the show.”
“The show” is a blue cheese blockbuster, set on a hill overlooking lush dairying pastures, with the mountains of Wilsons Promontory rising in the distance. The four types of blue cheese produced here are destined for the best restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne, and even the pointy end of Qantas planes. The Oak Blue claimed the Grand Champion Cheese title at this year’s annual Australian Grand Dairy Awards. The business also took out the Supreme Artisan Specialist Cheesemaker award at the 2023 International Cheese and Dairy Awards, held in Staffordshire in the United Kingdom, with all 4 cheeses awarded gold medals. “We have to pinch ourselves sometimes,” says Barry’s partner Cheryl Hulls. “We started out just wanting to make a living. It’s unbelievable to think how far we’ve come.”
Success hasn’t changed the cheesemaking formula Barry and Cheryl have stuck to since launching the business 16 years ago. Each block is still made entirely by hand, using the freshest raw ingredients. “The milk around here is sensational,” Barry says. “We have green pastures and farmers who are very particular about their product.”
Graham and Jill Nichol’s dairy farm 3 minutes down the road supplies the cow’s milk, while the buffalo milk that goes into their award-winning Riverine Blue comes from “the local buffalo man,” Bryan Jans, in Giffard West. “We don’t standardise our milk,” Barry says. “It comes in fresh from the dairy, and we pasteurise it into the factory. We’re dealing with different milk each day, so fat and protein levels change, making each block of cheese different.”
It’s intensive work. Barry is elbows-deep in a vat, scooping up fistfuls of curd particles and squeezing them to gauge the moisture level. Fellow cheesemakers Kathryn Brown and Georgina Furjes are busy ladling the curd particles into tightly packed plastic hoops. At this stage the prized product more resembles tubs of popcorn than blocks of cheese. “The hooping process fuses the curd particles together and forms the cheese,” Kathryn explains.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Barry works with the curd particles early in the cheese-making process; Owners Cheryl Hulls and Barry Charlton with platter; employees Nadia Wallace, Rocky Vega and Laura Jolly.
From here the cheese gets salted, then spiked with a needling machine (the only piece of machinery used) to allow the mould to grow, before beginning the maturing process, which takes around 8 weeks. Each step is critical, especially when you don’t use measurements. “It’s a judgement thing,” Barry says. “We do it all by eye and by feel.”
Barry grew up in Lang Lang, 90km south-east of Melbourne, and got his feel for cheesemaking in the 1970s, working at the Drouin Co-operative Butter Factory. He spent decades honing his skill, including 17 years as head cheesemaker at Jindi Cheese in west Gippsland, but eventually became restless.
“I knew he was a brilliant cheesemaker,” Cheryl says, “so in 2007 I said a stupid thing and suggested we go out on our own, making blue cheese. We were naive and jumped in the deep end, without doing any research, and with no money.”
Barry had also never made blue cheese before. But Cheryl had faith. “I had a gut feeling that if Barry can’t make it, no-one can make it,” she says. Barry buried himself in blue cheese, researching and experimenting with cultures until he was happy. The recipes for Oak Blue and Riverine Blue took him 2 years to perfect, while Tarwin Blue and Mossvale Blue (named after the nearby Tarwin River and Mossvale Park) took a mere year. The types and combination of cultures used is a closely guarded trade secret.
The couple began by selling cheese at local farmers’ markets, but things really took off when major cheese distributors Calendar Cheese started spruiking their cheeses to big city restaurants. “They saw something in us, and believed in us,” Cheryl says.
Barry and Cheryl now extend that belief to the team around them. “It’s not every job where you can say you make the best in the world of something,” says production manager Rocky Vega, as she expertly slices a richly-marbled block of Tarwin Blue with a manual cutting wire. Rocky says Barry and Cheryl aren’t your typical bosses. “They show so much appreciation for us, and the friendships we form here are incredible. It’s not a regular job, it’s a cheese family.”