It’s not hard to see why everyone likes George. He’s rich, mature and has loads of character. He’s also a cheese. And not just any cheese, he’s a gold medallist in this year’s 2020 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards. 

“Our head cheesemaker Luke Jackson has spent a lot of time refining George over the years and has made some really great improvements to it,” Bruny Island Cheese Company founder Nick Haddow said.

George is one of seven core cheeses made by the small-scale Tasmanian cheesery. The semi-hard cow’s cheese is highly valued for its natural rind and umami-rich savoury flavour.  “We’ve put a lot of effort into developing and proliferating the microflora that exists on the rind and that’s what’s driving so much of the flavour,” Haddow adds.

George is not the only high achiever in the family, last year his brother C2, an Alpine-style raw milk hard cheese, was also awarded a gold medal in 2019 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards. 

You won’t find any cheddar, brie or camembert in the cheese company’s collection of curds, “just Bruny Island cheeses,” says Haddow. 

“I am very interested in making cheeses that have a strong sense of place and reflect where they come from, both geographically and microbiologically.

“Everything that we do is about allowing our farm to speak through our cheese.”

Bruny Island Cheese Company is located on pristine pastures surrounded by native forest just off the south coast of Tasmania. The certified organic dairy farm is home to a mixed herd of around 50 heritage-breed cows that supply the fresh milk from which the cheese is made.

The breed of cows, as well as the unique environment in which they graze, add distinct regional character to the cheese and set it apart from commercial varieties.

“Cheese should represent where it comes from and that should be different on an almost daily basis,” Haddow believes. “You think about the difference between cheese and wine, for example. Wine is made from an entire year’s worth of grape production, but milk, on the other hand, is the manifestation of what a cow has eaten in the past 15 hours, so the geographical stamp on that is very precise, so is the time stamp.

“And if you move those cows to a different paddock, a different side of the river or the hill, the microclimate associated with that location may be incredible nuanced and subtle, but it is always different.”

It’s for this reason that a wheel of Bruny Island cheese made on a Monday will taste different to one made on a Wednesday. “That’s exactly the way it should be,” Haddow says. “And if it’s not – if your cheese doesn’t taste different every time you buy it, you should take it back because there’s something wrong with it.”

For more details on the delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards, head here.