I love Tasmania. I love it for its beauty as much as for its diversity. But I love it even more for its innovative food industries, especially when it comes to cheese… and spirits…
Now that probably makes me sound like an inebriated glutton. I’m not. I meant that in an appreciative sense – I could quite happily be living in the sticks somewhere making cheese and moonshine. It is for this reason that I can easily understand the passions that may have fuelled Grandvewe Cheese, a sheep milk cheesery, also the home of Hartshorn Distillery, overlooking the serenely beautiful Birchs Bay district of Southern Tasmania.
Let me redefine my initial statement by narrowing it down to sheep’s milk cheese and vodka – strange bedfellows, but not when the vodka is made out of sheep milk whey – which is exactly what they do at Grandvewe/Hartshorn.
Back tracking a little, Grandvewe Cheese is a scenic 40 minute drive from Hobart. My plan was to leave early and have breakfast enroute. I would suggest not doing this, as there is essentially nowhere to have breakfast early enroute. We ended up having an apple and a really bad coffee that we got at a little servo, which we tried to enjoy on a little fisherman’s jetty. Sounds romantic… yeah… nup.
I was starving by the time we got to Grandvewe, so couldn’t wait to start trying the cheeses.
We were greeted by a divinely lovely Pauline Treillard. She’s French. Which should say it all. Her lyrical French accent made everything sound so magical. Unfortunately it was her last day, so you won’t get a chance to meet her. Visiting on a working visa and doing a temporary stint as assistant cheesemaker, her visa was up, and she was off to New Zealand on to a new adventure (booo L). But she was ours for the morning, and she was passionately sharing how she had spent her last few months.
From Perigueux, in Dordogne, where she had begun her career as affineur and sommelier (sooo jealous), she had spent the last few months sharing her expertise with owner, entrepreneur, and award winning cheesemaker, Diane Rae, who had moved to Tasmania (from Queensland) in 2001 to put her dream in motion and create Grandvewe. It is a grand view, by the way, and there is a grand ewe – many of them.
Diane is the heart behind Grandvewe, an organic sheep dairy and cheesery. Starting small, the property now has a large family of sheep – and doubt not for a second – these sheep are definitely family. They are even their own signature Grandvewe breed – though the cute shaggy crew take their origins from a Middle Eastern breed, Awassi, which are particularly hardy and renowned for producing a high volume of milk.
Pauline takes us out to visit the milking brood. They have spent the night in their own little villa and they are excited – they know they are about to get a treat. She wanders in amongst them, they wander over for pats and cuddles. It is not hard to work out that these girls are pretty pampered.
Milking takes place every afternoon at 3pm from October to March, and the milk is then either used fresh to make a variety of cheeses or frozen for use in the seasons in between.
This is where it gets interesting. Sheep milk cheese is probably not as common in Australia, but it is growing in popularity owing to its ‘friendliness’ to lactose intolerant people. Additionally it is high in calcium and higher in minerals, in comparison with cows milk, and has high levels of mono and polyunsaturated fats. So there are a lot of reasons as to why people with allergies and intolerances are moving towards sheep milk cheeses – so they can enjoy cheese too!
Grandvewe craft a number of cheeses, from their light soft ‘White Pearl’, to the ‘Primavera’, buttery Manchego-style cheese, to their stunning – let me repeat – stunning, ‘Blue Sapphire’ a beautiful, beautiful, soft inoculated blue sheep milk cheese. They also do a number of seasonal varieties; for instance the Primevera is made using only spring milk, and there are a couple of others, which were not available when we visited, but are available seasonally or exclusively for restaurants that are also singing Grandvewe praises.
Pauline’s enthusiasm was infectious. The cheese sampling was addictive. In the excitement (mine), Pauline brought out some Blue Sapphire wheels of cheese at various stages of maturity. I was in raptures over this cheese. It is a Rouqefort-style cheese, using Penicillium Roqueforti, the very same mould as its French counterpart, which creates the deep blue veins that marbles the mass of cheese. It takes three to four months of nurturing to reach maturity and the resulting, soft creamy, crumbly, BEAUTIFUL cheese with a glorious bite is SENSATIONAL.
You may get a sense that I liked this cheese… oh, and the Primavera was heavenly as well – and that one can take up to eight months. We had the opportunity to try some mid-maturation samples of the Primavera as well, which was really interesting to see/taste, the change in texture especially. Pauline explained the process beautifully. I would now like to make my own cheese. Some sheep would be good too.
However, making cheese is a lot of work and a lot of wait. Oh, and also a lot of whey…
Which brings me to Hartshorn Distillery and their sheep whey vodka.
I am about to digress…
Ever since I was nine years old, I have had a fascination with the distilling process. That sounds bad, I know, but I think it is the fond memories of a happy childhood that provided the impetus to this thought process. Most of my childhood was spent on a fabulous little farm in North East Victoria. We (as in my parents) grew apples and grazed sheep. My mum was a great preserver, preserving all sorts of goodies from the orchard; jams, pickles, preserves. My dad, trying to contribute to the minimisation of waste, was doing his own style of preserving… he had fermented a large batch of imperfect apples and then invited Vince, his Yugoslav friend, to visit and aid him in his attempt to make apple schnapps, which he was quite the pro at.
This is where the fond memories lie. Dad and his partner-in-distilling-crime were at the back of the orchard under the pine trees with Vince’s antiquated homemade tarnished copper still, moonshining away, late into the night. My mother and us kids would wander back to visit them, only to find them laughing and carrying on, while they where diligently trying to bring the schnapps to an acceptable alcohol level. This was back in my dad’s more serious days, he was a stern father, so seeing them both in such good humour and periodic conniptions made me think that this apple based ‘rocket fuel’ that they were creating was a fun process and I have always remembered it with great fondness.
Ever since, I have fancied myself as a bit of a moonshiner in the making, visiting many distilleries, taking a great interest in the equipment and marvelling over the aromatic results. So seeing Ryan’s stainless steel stills newly housed in the ‘dungeon’ (read ‘basement’ – I am just trying to be dramatic) of the Grandvewe estate, I couldn’t help feeling rather envious. They are seriously sexy contraptions. This leads me to conclude that my moonshining aspirations are more inline with my own romantic notion and love of sexy cooking equipment rather than a drinking problem!
So back to the distillery and the master distiller – Ryan Hartshorn.
Grandvewe Cheese had been enjoying great success, the girls taking out award after award. Not to be outdone, Ryan, Diane’s son, decided to do something to develop his own passions and pursue his own recognition and accolades.
It started with the planting of a vineyard, but Ryan very quickly realised that volume was never going to provide grand returns, so he looked to something new.
This came in the form of utilising the whey, the liquid that is left behind once the milk solids have been removed in the cheese making process. Whey is generally a waste product. It does have its uses, in the making of ricotta, protein powders, and stock feeds, amongst other things, but Ryan decided to do something different.
He had heard about cow milk whey being used to make vodka and decided that this was an avenue he would explore.
Now there is not a lot of information out there about the process, and the few who are the custodians of the information can be pretty guarded, so there was a bit of extraction and experimentation involved in the process to turn the complex sugars of the whey protein and convert these sugars into basic sugars which are then fermented into alcohol and eventually distilled.
What was interesting to me was how young Ryan is. When you think sheep whey vodka (or any distilling process), you would expect to find a more ‘moonshining’ looking character – which I guess means slightly advanced years, dishevelled appearance, parched skin, red alcoholic nose and the rest (pardon my ignorance and assumptions). But Ryan is fresh and young, very dynamic, knowledgeable and passionate and didn’t even look hungover. Not what I was expecting.
And the vodka? Wow, not what I was expecting either.
It is unfiltered, so I expected it to be a little rough, but wow, it was smooth. In fact, much smoother than your normal vodka.
Just as I was writing this I decided I needed to reaffirm the previous statement, so I poured myself a (small) vodka of each – normal vodka, and sheep whey vodka. Yep, much smoother. Note to self – stock up on olives. Best Paddock to martini experience you will ever have 🙂
So Ryan’s wayward enterprise has become quite the success and his rustic beginners still has been upgraded to the aforementioned sexy contraptions that now sit in his dungeon/lab/come distillery, and I am once again very jealous.
Conclusion. Grandvewe Cheese and Hartshorn Distillery is a must visit, when visiting Tasmania. You can cover all of the bases at once, great scenic drive, fabulous views of Bruny Island, sheep – lots of sheep, milking, cheese tasting, vodka tasting, and even some cheese making classes if you have time and are organised.
Then, stay on, have a cheese platter for lunch, a glass of wine, and a cappuccino with sheep milk – crazy stuff doesn’t froth!
AND, you are covering all the sustainability bases as well – sheep milk = cheese, milk whey = vodka, mutton = mutton kransky, and wine = pinot paste and it is all organic as well. And if all that confuses you, well, get yourself down there and check it out, they really are one of the great food and wine innovators that you will get to visit in Tasmania. Just make sure you take an esky as you won’t be able to refrain from purchasing cheese, vodka and all of the other wonderful ancillary products that are produced on the Grandvewe farm.
What’s next? French Oak Whey Vodka… it just keeps getting better.
For more information visit:
Grandvewe Cheese / Hartshorn Distillery
http://grandvewe.com.au
59 Devlyns Rd, Birchs Bay, TAS, Australia
This story was written by Petra Frieser – Pebbles + Pomegranate Seeds. Thank you to Pauline for being such a wonderful host and guide.
