Common or garden? Not in taste and texture.
Who Denise Riches, at Hindmarsh Valley Dairy at Victor Harbour on the Fleurieu Peninsula, is one of two producers (Bruny Island Cheese Company in Tasmania is the other) in Australia licensed to make raw-milk cheeses – the first since the early 1960s.
How Created in the style of Emmentaler (the classic hole-filled Swiss cheese), Emme is aged for six months and has a natural rind. The handmade cheese is turned and washed frequently during the ageing process, and has the start of eye formation (what the layperson might call holes). It’s made using non-animal rennet and goat’s milk produced on Riches’ 80-hectare farm.
Why Emme is notable for its flavour combination of nutty, sweet and acid notes, capturing a complexity not possible in pasteurised cheese. Riches is renowned as an innovator and purveyor of excellence – her cultured butter was first presented on the tables at Aria in Sydney in 2009 – and Emme is now featured on menus of leading Fleurieu restaurants, including The Kitchen Door at Penny’s Hill Winery.
Where Emme retails for about $10 per 100gm. It’s distributed through Scoop SA in South Australia and sold at the weekly Victor Harbor Farmers’ Market.
