In a rustic former winery in the hills above Yarragon, Rachel Needoba handcrafts exceptional cheese. The quietly spoken cheesemaker has exceptionally high standards and works with only the best milk. She uses the gentlest methods to make her cheeses and goes as far as refusing to wrap them in plastic because she believes this changes their flavour and texture.
Needoba founded the Butterfly Factory micro-dairy in a former factory in the Gippsland town of Warragul before moving it to the winery built for her husband, winemaker William Downie, on their Yarragon vineyard in 2021. She starts with fresh milk from a farm in nearby Darnum. The milk comes from a herd of Fleckvieh cows, known in Europe for their dense, rich milk: perfect for cheesemaking.
The milk is carefully transported to the cheesery and never pumped. “I’m gentle with milk,” says Needoba. “Milk is delicate. The fat particles can be damaged and you end up with less-than-optimum product. That is why I gently bucket my cheese and batch-pasteurise it very carefully.”
She makes a delicate lactic cheese called Chamela with a fine mousse-like texture, perfect with figs and charcuterie. Its wrinkled cousin is Monkery, a puck of smooth and creamy cheese with a geotrichum (a cheese-appropriate mould) rind that breaks down the interior into a creamy, oozy and delicious paste. Needoba also makes a raclette-style St Ives, aged for six months until it’s sweet and nutty. Her latest cheese is called Auriel. Similar to a Saint-Nectaire, it’s pressed but not cooked, and is firm, yielding and beautifully aromatic.
Products: Chamela, Monkery, St Ives and Auriel cows’ milk cheeses.