All about the Mornington Peninsula Flavour

Main Ridge Dairy is one of just a handful of farmhouse cheesemakers in Australia.  Farmhouse cheeses are the crème de la crème of handmade cheese – a cheese made on the same farm where the animals have grazed and were milked. Even in Europe, true farmhouse cheeses are becoming rarer.

It is this close proximity of milk production to its transformation into cheese, along with skilled cheesemaking, that makes Main Ridge Dairy cheese taste so good. Goat milk is incredibly delicate. If it is sloshed about too much in big dairy tankers travelling scores of miles the fine, fine fat globules can start to degrade, and the result is a cheese that has a strong goaty aroma.

At Main Ridge the milk is gently carted mere metres from the milking shed to the cheese making room. Here it is made into a range of cheese from the light, soft, fresh and tangy lactic curd cheese known as Cashmere to the ash coated, bloomy rind Capriole, which has been compared favourably to a French Buchette Cendre cheese. There’s the Capony, a nutty slightly springy cheese -perfect to make a Rueben’s Sandwich or the aged Caprinella – that has all the hallmarks of some of the great aged goat Goudas from the Netherlands.

You can try the range on a tasting plate at Billy’s Café, Main Ridge Dairy’s farm gate with a glass of Paringa Estate pinot noir, made just a few kilometres away. The café overlooks the the farm and is at 289-295 Main Creek Rd, Main Ridge, Sun, Thu-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat 10am-5pm