KEY POINTS:
Water buffalo don't moo like cows. It's a throaty drone, close to a strangled note from a didjeridoo.
Helen Dorresteyn and her four-year-old daughter Saskia are doing a splendid imitation.
"Hmmmmh ... come here my beautiful girls," she implores of a small herd of milking buffalo mooching around in a paddock near Clevedon in South Auckland.
They are big, lumbering hairy beasts with necks like rugby players and a fondness for wallowing in mud.
They're also highly intelligent creatures with long memories, assures their co-owner.
And buffalo milk makes very fine mozzarella cheese.
Back at the Dorresteyn's hilltop home overlooking Clevedon Village, Helen dips into a tub of salty brine and pulls out a fist-size ball of porcelain-white mozzarella.
"There's nothing like eating it fresh. You keen to try it with some fresh tomato and basil?"
A simple dining pleasure enjoyed by Italians for centuries, but in New Zealand this platter represents a milestone for the cheese industry.
This is the first time mozzarella cheese has been made in the traditional Italian way with milk from a locally-farmed water buffalo herd.
"It should be eaten within days of making it. Fresh really is best."
You really have to love cheese to be a specialist cheesemaker. It's labour intensive, full of regulatory pitfalls and the output is modest.
But that hasn't deterred Clevedon Valley Cheese with its buffalo mozzarella, or other specialist cheese producers.
The New Zealand Specialist Cheesemakers Association (NZSCA) has around 30 professional members, and many have entered their produce in this week's NZ Champions of Cheese Awards and CheeseFest.
Last year Jan and John Walter from Crescent Dairy Goats, who've been making cheese for seven years, won the supreme award with their richly mature Old Gold.
Secretary Dianne Kenderdine says the specialist cheese industry is in good shape, with six new producers among the 400-odd entries.
"There are more entries from smaller producers than ever before and most of them are entering a greater number of cheeses. Five years ago there were only cows' milk entries _ now we have sheep, goat and buffalo. It shows there's a warming of the Kiwi palate to different cheese varieties."
The Clevedon Valley Cheese producers are so keen for the judges to sample their mozzarella fresh that it will be hand-delivered minutes before the entry deadline.
As our tastes extend beyond cheddar, sales of speciality cheeses are booming.
Although precise figures are difficult to come by, companies like Canaan Cheese - which produces artisan Mediterranean cheeses - report a domestic growth rate of 80 per cent in the past year alone.
Canaan's Gal Pyzhanov says the company has recently started selling two new cheese products in supermarkets, and is producing eight cheese products in the Avondale factory.
The buzz in the cheese industry is less about sales and more about raw (unpasteurised) milk cheeses products.
Last year, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) relaxed its stringent regulations to allow several raw milk cheese products to be directly imported into this country.
This month, a working party from FSANZ and NZSCA will discuss standards for raw milk production in New Zealand.
"This will open many gates for local producers," predicts Kenderdine.
And what's so special about raw milk cheese?
Just ask Australian cheesemaster Will Studd.
"Discovering the depth of flavour in a well-made raw-milk cheese is like watching colour television for the first time after years of black and white," he remarks in his book Cheese Slices.
Whether fresh stretched-curd or hard-cooked pressed, all cheeses are affected by the quality of the milk and the methods of cheesemaking.
The milk is influenced by the changing conditions of pasture, soil and season; the French call this local distinctiveness "terroir".
The fromage produced in the sequestered world of Benedictine monks centuries ago bears no resemblance to the cheese being produced by three Auckland cheesemakers.
Goat's cheese ripening in the cellar at Crescent Diary Goat farm in Albany.
So we just thought we'll make it ourselves, we can do it.Jan and John Walter's Crescent Dairy goats are tame and enjoy roaming their rural home in Albany's suburbia.
CLEVEDON VALLEY CHEESE
As cheese connoisseurs say: Once experienced, the texture and fragrance of fresh buffalo mozzarella can never be forgotten.
It was love at first bite for Helen and Richard Dorresteyn when they sampled the delicacy in Italy.
It became an obsession when they had the idea of importing 65 water buffalo so they could make their own fresh mozzarella.
"Sheer frustration drove us to produce the cheese ourselves," says Helen, patting the neck of a buffalo calf grazing behind her Clevedon home.
Dorresteyn was having difficulty finding a local specialist cheesemaker to take a stall at the Clevedon Village Farmers' Market, which she started in 2005.
"So we just thought we'll make it ourselves, we can do it. We can supply the market with top quality fresh mozzarella."
But it wasn't that simple.
The couple formed the Clevedon Buffalo Company with four other partners and set about finding suitable Riverine-breed milking buffalo.
The first shipment of 18 milking buffalo and one bull from Australia went without a hitch early last year, but the second and third shipments were held up in quarantine.
"There was a lot of stressful red tape to overcome," says Helen, a former art teacher turned organic fruit and veggie producer with a 14ha property.
Richard, a former industrial electrician, has been toiling away on the machinery at the cheese factory in Papakura in preparation for the start of production this month.
"At the moment, we have limited supplies of milk to make the cheese but that will all change as the herd expands," says Richard.
His organic tomatoes are highly praised at the market, but Richard admits he still has much to learn about making traditional mozzarella di bufala.
The couple recently returned from three weeks in Italy's premier mozzarella-making region, Campania, where they attended the World Buffalo Congress and visited local cheesemakers.
"The Italians are very generous with their knowledge. I've learnt so much from them," says Richard.
"And they never stopped feeding us," adds Helen.
Buffalo milk has twice as much fat as cow's milk and one-third more protein. This fat-protein ratio gives the cheese extraordinary elastic stretch and the cheesemaker has to accurately predict when to begin stretching and pulling.
"We've experimented a lot," says Helen, "but the feedback from our latest batch has been really good."
Divine would be a better description.
CRESCENT DAIRY GOATS
There's a knack to hand-milking a goat, and bless her, Flute is being patient with this milkmaid.
"Get a firm grip on the top of teat," says John Walter from the sideline. I manage a few squirts in the pail, although Flute and the rest of the 17-odd milking herd produce about four litres daily.
The goats are intensely curious about a newcomer to the 2.8ha farm in the middle of suburbia in Albany. "They're very people-minded animals," says Jan, pulling young Gabby aside before she lunges at my blouse.
It possibly tastes better than the apple-and-cider drench the goats are fed after milking.
It's part of the organic regime: "We use only organic fertilisers on the farm and the goats are fed only grass, hay and whole grains."
The Walters moved to Albany 24 years ago, raised three children and started making cheese in 2000. They still have an honesty box at the end of the driveway.
The farmhouse in which Jan creates her award-winning cheeses, could be in the Swiss Alps, with a spinning wheel in the corner and Johanna Spyri's Heidi - with its sickly heroine who blossomed on goat's milk - on the piano.
"We get customers coming back who were raised on our goat's milk," reports Jan.
John's favourite goat is Agatha, mother of Christie. "I think she's gormless," says Jan.
She says there's also a naming line in artists and musical instruments.
The herd consists of three breeds - Saanens, Toggenburgs and Nubians - highly prized for their milk.
"If it smells goaty it's not right. It should be sweet," explains Jan.
In cheese terms, the Walters are producing farmhouse cheese; it reflects the specific character of one farm and one herd.
They've won more than 50 awards though _ and last year took home the supreme award at the Champions of Cheese awards.
Jan makes semi-soft and mature cheeses, producing one large cheese or a batch of small cheeses daily, and she says making cheese is a breeze compared to the time and paperwork it took to secure the Risk Management Programme, the obligatory registration for cheesemakers.
Back at the farmhouse, she picks one of her cheeses from where it rests on the shelf in the carefully-controlled cellar. There's a light dusting of grey mould on the rind; it's called fourrure du chat or fur of the cat.
"When I first saw it I thought it was going off," she says.
Each of the 180 cheeses in the cellar has a "birth tag" and just like newborns, they are wiped and turned every day of their life.
A self-taught cheesemaker, Jan spent last winter experimenting on her latest cheese, The Dirty Devil, which is so pungent it must be stored in a plastic container.
"The rinds are just starting to redden up now. I'll finish with several wipes of French brandy."
CAANAN CHEESE
"Every movement affects the cheese. Everybody who makes cheese must love it," says cheesemaker Simcha Tur-Shalom as she stirs an enormous vat of curds being prepared for Zefatit, one of the speciality Mediterranean cheeses produced by Caanan.
"When I was at the kibbutz, I loved to teach the children about traditional cheesemaking. Turning milk into cheese was like magic to them."
In the uniform of white coat and gumboots, her long pigtails bundled up in a hair net, it's difficult to picture Tur-Shalom making cheese in Tzuba, a kibbutz near Jerusalem. New Zealand's strict hygiene practises are tedious, but since arriving here in 2002 and establishing Caanan Cheese, based in Avondale, the Tur-Shalom family has remained faithful to their tradition of using fresh vegetarian ingredients and following kosher guidelines.
Simcha's husband Ilan, daughter Gal and her husband Ilya Pyzhanov work fulltime in the business.
"We knew about cheese, but not much about business," laughs Gal, who is in charge of sales and marketing.
Gal hands me a spoonful of Galilee, a delicious velvety cheese.
"In Israel we have this for breakfast and dinner."
The cottage cheese is a revelation, far superior to the tasteless offerings of industrial cheesemakers.
"Kiwis are so open-minded about trying new tastes," says Simcha, deftly scooping up the curd and pouring it into moulds.
As whey drips out of the 100-odd moulds, Simcha begins the clean-up.
The exciting part comes later when she begins turning the moulds.
"It's like looking after 100 babies," she grins. "You turn them, touch them softly, smile at them."
If it's a bit chilly in this cheese creche, Simcha - happiness in Hebrew - doesn't feel it. "Honestly I could stay here all day."
* CheeseFest is on today at the SkyCity Convention Centre, 5pm-8pm, www.ticketek.co.nz There are also door sales for $35
