LET THERE BE CHEESE

Some people are happy with a slice of grilled tasty on toast. Others can tell you the paddock a wheel came from. In a region already known for its rich volcanic soil and dairy heritage, a handful of makers — and a Byron Bay local with one of Australia's most respected cheese authorities for a surname — are proving the Northern Rivers has become serious cheese country.

WRITTEN BY DONNA RISHTON-POTTER

Sam & Ellie

It's fair to say most of us love cheese. It's a staple of the fridge door, the Friday night toasty, the dinner party platter. Having Dutch grandparents meant my own childhood came pre-loaded with the pungent aroma of it — a heady whiff of limburger or gouda, cut thick and paired with dark rye.

But when your father is Australia's foremost cheese authority, Will Studd, and your childhood holidays were spent traipsing through the farmhouses of Europe's finest cheesemakers, throwing around a word like "love" doesn't quite cut it. Rockstar of the cheese world, and one half of the “Studd Siblings”, Sam Studd, puts it more plainly: for his family, cheese isn't just something you eat. It's an experience much closer to religion.

Asked about his own earliest cheese memory, Sam doesn't mention the European holidays, he describes his childhood laundry instead. "Dad had an import and distribution business and there was always something new coming through the door," he says, "and for some reason he used to sit us up on the big chest fridge in the laundry to taste it." Sam was three. His sister Ellie was nine. Out of that fridge overflowing with wheels of cheese, Will would hand them a Boursin or a fresh French cheese and ask what they thought, "like our opinion actually mattered."

It's easy to underestimate how large a shadow being Will Studd's son casts. Will built much of Australia's understanding of specialty cheese and spent years arguing — and eventually winning — the fight to legalise imported raw milk cheese in this country. It's a legacy that could have made Sam a passenger on his father's journey. Instead, he took himself to New York to train at Murray's Cheese, the famed Greenwich Village cheese institution, where nobody knew whose son he was. "You're just another set of hands learning to cut, wrap, mature and sell it," he says. He went on to sit the notoriously brutal Certified Cheese Professional exam; only three people in Australia have passed it, two of whom work for Will Studd. "I wanted the knowledge to be mine," he says, "not borrowed."

In a role he has well and truly earnt, Sam is now Director of the Will Studd cheese range, travelling six months of the year around Australia and the US spreading the word on specialty cheese, running masterclasses and making sales. His sister Ellie is the other half of the Studd Siblings — both members of the International Guilde des Fromagers and ACS Certified Cheese Professionals (CCPs) — who join their father in Europe a few times a year to hand-select what goes into the "Selected by Will Studd" range. Ellie leans more into the marketing side, though the split is looser than it sounds. "We both teach, we both write, and somehow neither of us has murdered the other doing it," Sam laughs of working with his sister. The siblings also co-wrote The Best Things in Life are Cheese in 2023, a guide built on the idea that cheese doesn't need to be intimidating, just understood.

Accessibility is at the forefront of Sam’s mission. Cheese, he says, has picked up a bit of a "wank factor" over the years, all big words and hushed reverence. "There's a mysticism to cheese, the same way there is with wine, and I've always wanted to remove the barriers and help more people into the cheese universe." It starts, he says, with your cheesemonger: ask to taste before you buy wherever you can, and don't overthink it. "Eat it, take it home if you like it."

Although Ellie still lives in Melbourne, Byron Bay is where Sam lands between trips. He's called this region home for close to a decade, though his family holidayed at Belongil long before he was born; his parents eventually moved up permanently, and Sam bought the house next door. He calls it his "New York rehab," only half joking. "It's got everything I need to feel human. Good surf, great locally grown produce, ripper fishing, and just enough left-of-centre people to keep life interesting."

Ask whether anything from the Northern Rivers holds up against the cheese he's spent a career sourcing globally, and he doesn't hedge. "Genuinely, yes, and I don't say that as a hometown courtesy." Deb Allard's Cheeses Loves You is the first name out of his mouth, closely followed by Kerry and Paul Wilson of Nimbin Valley Dairy. "People forget how much has to go right before a wheel gets anywhere near a plate," he says — "the pasture, the health of the animal, someone milking twice a day every day of the year, the cheesemaker's hands, months of ageing. Deb and the Wilsons are living proof of every one of those steps happening properly, right here, not somewhere in Europe." Byron Bay Mozzarella gets a mention too, for its fresh Italian-style cheese. "All of them would sit happily on my own table."

For Sam, they are all part of the same legacy his father spent decades fighting for. "When I see a small dairy still doing things the slow, traditional way, I see the direct result of a fight our old man spent decades on." It's an economic argument too: behind every wheel is a farmer milking twice daily and a cheesemaker putting in an eight-hour shift to turn that milk into something worth eating. "Supermarkets have trained people to think five-dollar cheese is normal. It's about buying less, more often, at a fair price."

Honestly, he says, the farmers markets are the best way in: proper farmstead cheese, made where the animals are raised and milked. "There's nothing like buying cheese straight off the person who made it. You get the story, you get to ask what's good that week, and half the time you leave with a recommendation you'd never have picked yourself." Which is, in its own way, exactly what happened in that laundry thirty-odd years ago; someone handed a kid a wheel of cheese and asked what he thought, like his opinion mattered. Turns out it still does.

THE PRODUCERS

Nimbin Valley Dairy

Long before the Northern Rivers had a reputation for artisan cheese, Paul and Kerry Wilson were building one, on a red-soil farm bordering Nightcap National Park. Nimbin Valley Dairy is built on both their families' foundations: more than five generations of farming and cheesemaking between them. Paul's grandfather made Dunoon Vintage Cheddar nearby, and Paul later won a Dairy Australia Cheesemaking Scholarship in 2007. These days Kerry manages the business and herds, while Paul focuses on the cheese.

Their range takes inspiration from classic French and Italian styles, made with Northern Rivers milk and distinctly local character: a rich, oozing Tintenbar Triple Cream, a bold, yeasty Nashua Washed Rind, and Monte Nardi, a hard cow's milk cheese named for the mountain overlooking their farm, a nod to the region's early Italian settlers. Their Blue Cow and Blue Goat are proper, well-made blues Sam rates among the best he's tasted locally.

"This small-batch, hands-on approach keeps our local traditions alive," Paul says, "and supports the farmers and community we live and love."

Find their cheeses at Mullumbimby, Byron, Murwillumbah and Ballina Farmers Markets. nimbinvalley.com.au

Cheeses Loves You

If cheese is a religious experience for the Studds, Deb Allard clearly feels the same way. Her story is a farm story: the 200-acre Burringbar property has been in husband Jim's family since 1895, when his great-grandfather bought it from the government for £1 an acre on condition it was cleared for pasture. Dairying stopped in 1986; Deb and Jim brought it back in 2016, building their own micro-dairy to work with single-source Jersey milk — "just a gift to work with," according to Sam, thanks to its higher fat and protein content.

Nearly two decades into cheesemaking, including stints in the UK, France and Italy, Deb now makes more than 20 varieties by hand, from mozzarella and stracchino through to brie, feta and blue, all additive-free and small-batch. Her haloumi, "Mr Squeaky," has a serious local following, and her probiotic kefir has picked up a Grand Champion title.

Find her cheese at Northern Rivers farmers markets, including Murwillumbah, New Brighton, Mullumbimby and Byron Farmers Markets. @debra_allard_cheese

Byron Bay Mozzarella

Byron Bay Mozzarella began in 2014, when friends Valerio and Luca, with roots in Rome and Turin, set out to make the fresh mozzarella they couldn't find in Australia, working from a small kitchen in the Bay. The business has since grown to include Nicola, Chef Ryan and the next generation of cheesemaker, Kiki Rae, working alongside local dairy farmers on a growing range: buffalo mozzarella, bocconcini, fior di latte, scamorza, stracchino, burrata, ricotta and a best-selling halloumi. It's hand-stretched, eaten within days rather than aged, a different discipline entirely to farmhouse cheddar, but built the same way: on skill, local milk, and a refusal to cut corners.

bbmozz.com

THE CHEESEMONGER

Kat Harvey Cheese

Kat Harvey's path to cheese ran through the kitchen first, cooking in some of Sydney's best-regarded restaurants, including Bistro Ortolan, Bloodwood and Astral, before working retail at Formaggi Ocello in Surry Hills. She trained under some of Australia's and France's most respected cheesemakers, including Carla Meurs and Ann-Marie Monda of Holy Goat and Ivan Larcher of Long Paddock Cheese, before moving to the Northern Rivers to work under Paul Wilson at Nimbin Valley Dairy. More than 13 years in, that pedigree shapes her own cheese room in Murwillumbah, where she curates over 50 Australian and imported cheeses and runs guided tastings through flavour, technique and provenance.

katharveycheese.com