Hobbitt Farm 'Snowy Mts Chèvre'

Fresh
Goat's milk (Swiss Toggenburg / Saanen )
Snowy Mountains
100g discs

If there's one thing I look for in goat's milk cheeses, no matter whether they're fresh, aged or blue, it's clean flavours. I don't mind so much if the texture's not quite right, or even if the cheese is a little too salty, but dirty flavours are what give goat's milk cheeses a bad name.

The flavour of Hobbitt Farm's 'Snowy Mts Chèvre' - from the hills just south of Jindabyne - is as clean and fresh as the Kosciuszko mountain air. Jindabyne holds a special place in my heart, as I wrote my Honours thesis there back in the mid-90's. But that feels like a lifetime ago, and a world away from the land of cheese that I now inhabit.

Hobbitt Farm
'Snowy Mts Chèvre'

Cheese-maker Mike Corbett could be the highest altitude curd craftsman in the country, and also leads ski tours in winter - possibly the best job in the world!

The cheese is snowy white, and the texture is very dense, but not at all dry. You can almost slice it like fetta, but it still has a lovely spread-ability, and absolutely no moisture pooling inside the packet. For my taste, the salt level is a little high, but this makes the cheese perfect as a fetta stand-in.

The chèvre is also available with various flavours and marinades, such as Tasmanian mountain pepper, or you can do what I did and just add some fresh rosemary from the garden to the plain chèvre. Delicious spread thickly on home-made crostini, accompanied by a vintage ale.