the milk is everything

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The pioneer who put goat's cheese on the Australian map is calling it a day, writes Joanna Savill.

GABRIELLE KERVELLA is hanging up her cheese hoops. After about 30 years making, setting and maturing some of the finest goat's milk curd in Australia, this tireless pioneer says it's time she "went fishing or wrote a book or something".

She has sold her farm, her goats have a new home and the name most readily associated with premier Australian goat's cheese over the past 2 1/2 decades, Kervella, will vanish from our shelves.

But the vivid taste memories will linger. At their best, her clean, piquant fresh curd, creamy-ashed logs and gloriously complex, smoothly subtle, aged or affine versions were the cream of the crop.

Kervella began making cheese commercially in 1984 with just a handful of goats. But then, a town called Gidgegannup, north-east of Perth, went from being a speck on a map to a culinary landmark.

Trial and error, famous stories of throwing out spoiled curd by the bucketful, converting cheddar cheese and cow's milk palates to chevre culture - particularly in regional Western Australia - were hurdles she clambered over, one at a time.

"It was terrible getting going," she recalls. "Phoning France (where she learned the basics of cheesemaking) was no good; they didn't know the conditions. Then when I finally got a decent cheese, it was horrendous trying to get people to taste it. Now, you have to beat them off with a stick."

In the late '90s, she converted to organics, eventually moving closer still to her credo that "the milk is everything" by going fully biodynamic. Despite the moral and physical support of her partner Alan Cockman, who joined her in the business about 10 years ago, things never got any easier.

Drought and the rising cost of fuel - with its implications for the cost of biodynamic feed - took their toll. In the end, so did the struggle to remain sustainable, both environmentally and financially.

While Kervella remains circumspect, long-time supporter, cheese retailer, author and broadcaster Will Studd is certain food-safety bureaucracy also played a part.

"le was one of the few cheesemakers prepared to stand up for the raw milk issue," he says. "And it would certainly have been frustrating (to have to pasteurise) when she was producing some of the finest goat's milk in Australia."

From Studd to Neil and , to Perth-based cheese distributor Nick Bath, Kervella has always had stellar industry fans. First to discover her on the east coast was a young Barry Mc, operator of a food distribution business called Blue Cockatoo and owner of Sydney provedore Fratelli Fresh. He recalls: "Her cheese was just so clean and pure, it blew me away. It was in a class of its own."

Studd affirms: "le put goat cheese on the map in Australia. Before she came along, there really was nothing. She was the one who made it interesting and we should be grateful for that legacy."

So what next for Kervella and Cockman?

"I just want to play for a while," she says. Her beloved goats are moving to a larger, organic farm in WA's Great South, arguably the state's most vibrant food region. Given the strong local network and food culture, and the new owner's enthusiasm about making good cheese, Kervella remains heartened.

She swears she will never make cheese again, but a spark of the dream lingers.

"I'd want about 10 acres (four hectares) and to be as self-sustaining as possible. I'd love to work and use my knowledge to help small producers. Even conventional farmers get such a small return. When I put the For Sale ad in the paper, so many people phoned me saying they wanted to start up a small cheesemaking business. So I'm really hopeful for the future."

Joanna SavillFebruary 5, 2008

Finding another whey: it's time for pioneering cheesemaker le Kervella to move to new pastures.Photo: Marina Oliphant