L’Artisan is a range of handmade cheese, made in Australia with organic milk to traditional French recipes and
techniques, by cheese maker and owner Matthieu Megard. Today, Matthieu works with milk from the Smith Family Organic Farm on the Great Ocean Road. The Smiths look after their pastures organically with no pesticides. They do not feed their Jersey cows any silage, which makes for happy cows and great milk. Only protected from the wild Great Southern Ocean by a sand dune, the Smith Farm is the epitome of the local ‘terroir’. The precious milk is given very special care at every step of the cheese making process. Everything is done by hand, from skimming to moulding, and every batch, every cheese receives special attention.

Fermier is a semi hard, smear ripened cheese, reminiscent of the classical Morbier cheeses of Jura with their ash layer in the centre. The cheese is pressed for 12 hours in cloth, salted in a brine bath and then smeared every second day with a special brine solution. After six weeks, the rind develops a reddish tinge and is slightly sticky to the touch. Fermier is nutty in flavour with a smoky finish and melts well in addition to being a stunning table cheese.