Just imagine, you’re a teacher and your husband is in Applied Science. A school friend consoles you every time over copious amounts of wine to create the best Cheese Factory in Victoria, Australia, The World! Yet what do you know about cheese making? After another stop at Brown Brothers you sight the old butter factory in Milawa. Could this be it? You resign from your jobs, up digs in your cappuccino sipping inner Melbourne and drag the kids to this “Slower life”. Enter the dream of David & Anne Brown. And their first cheese back in 1988? Milawa Blue - which continues to this day to be spot on the money.
| STRENGTH: 5/10• Fruity & sweet red wine
The fact that they wanted to create European-inspired cheese back in the eighties was smart considering the drought of great produce that was coming into the country. David had fallen in love with the cheeses of Northern Italy, particularly the young and sweet Gorgonzola Dolce. After several years of trying, Milawa Blue was perfected with an Italian flair but Australian-style.
During a time of great upheaval in the dairy industry of the 60’s and 70’s, Australia lost nearly 90% of its farmers due to de-regulation and allowance of very cheap milk imports. Australia went from 70,000 dairy farmers to just 7,000. These were desperate times for those stayed. The rise of the Farmhouse Cheese movement allowed dairy farmers to value-add their milk to make cheese. Just like a water into wine scenario, the lives of many farmers and their families in this country can be attributed to cheese. Blessed are the cheesemakers.