SWISS trained artisan cheesemaker Chris Vogel, Denmark, has added to his Dellendale Creamery’s accolades with a low-volume gold medal specialty.
Mr Vogel’s Dellendale Creamery Peaceful Bay Gruyere won Grand Champion Dairy Product and Champion Cheese at the 2018 Dairy Industry Association of Australia (DIAA) WA dairy product awards presentation dinner at the Cottesloe Golf Club recently.
Mr Vogel, who runs the business on his former dairy farm with just a part-time helper to wrap and pack cheeses, made only 10 of the 12 kilogram wheels of Peaceful Bay Gruyere last year.
According to Mr Vogel, each one started as 130 litres of fresh milk straight out of the vat at the nearby robotic dairy of Malcolm and Kellee Hick, who run more than 180 Holstein milking cows on a farm in the next block and raise their herd replacement heifers on Mr Vogel’s farm.
He said hard-cooked raw milk cheese Peaceful Bay Gruyere was only available on limited release because it could only be made when risk of silage bacteria contamination was low.
It is then cured for a minimum of six months, with more complex flavours developing at around nine to 12 months.
Mr Vogel has another batch of Gruyere wheels ripening in the cool room for release around December.
“Certainly after such recognition that our cheese is top quality, we can feel confident to make more to cater for market demand,” he said.
The Peaceful Bay name continues a Dellendale Creamery tradition of cheeses named after local places.
Mr Vogel started the tradition when he began hand-making cheeses about seven years ago as a hobby which developed into a wholesale micro-manufacturing business.
“Peaceful Bay was suggested by one of the shops (he supplies) in Perth, who knows our interest in using local place names for our cheeses,” he said.
“We liked it, Peaceful Bay is a strong community with some well-aged characters.”
The Grand Champion Dairy Product award won Mr Vogel a grant of up to $2000 towards the cost of attending a dairy conference or training event.
As well as the top awards, Dellendale Creamery’s Peaceful Bay Gruyere, along with its Torndirrup Appenzelle, won gold medals in the Firm Cheese and Cheese with Eye Formation categories respectively.
Dellendale Creamery’s Triple Cream Brie and Churchill Rd Raclette also won silver in the White Mould Ripened Cheese and Cheese with Eye Formation categories, making all of the cheeses Mr Vogel entered in the DIAA competition medal winners.
As medal winners they are eligible for the 2019 Australian Grand Dairy Awards run by Dairy Australia, which will be judged in November with the winners announced at a gala celebration in early February.
Last September Mr Vogel won the 2017 IGA Perth Royal Show Best Small Cheese Maker special award at his first try, and Champion Cheese and Champion Bovine Cheese trophies and sashes, with his Churchill Rd Raclette.
As previously reported in Farm Weekly, Mr Vogel grew up milking cows with his Swiss-born father on the Dellendale property before completing an apprenticeship in cheese making in Switzerland and working in cheese factories there for 10 years.
He returned to Denmark to run the dairy farm but gave up milking cows when his cheese-making hobby developed into a business.
His Dellendale Creamery cheeses are sold in IGA stores, some wineries and South Coast retail outlets.
Other DIAA WA award winners on Saturday included Brownes Dairy’s Brownes Whipping Cream named Champion Cream and Bannister Downs Dairy’s Non-Homogensied Milk awarded Champion White Milk, each for the second year in a row.
Il Gelato, Osborne Park, won Champion Dairy Dessert, also for the second year in a row but with a different dessert – Summertime Choc Tops was the winner this year.
Brownes Dairy continued its winning run with its Hunt and Brew Colombia Coffee winning the Champion Flavoured Milk and Champion Innovation awards and its Traditional Natural Yoghurt was named Champion Yoghurt.
Perth gourmet gelato manufacturer Gelatino won the Champion Ice Cream award with Carnarvon Banana Gelato and Kytren Goats Cheese Dairy, Gidgegannup, won the Champion Non-Bovine Product award with Kytren Ash Log.
