Yarra Valley Dairy is a family-owned artisan cheesemaker on a working farm at Yering, in the heart of the Yarra Valley. Established in 1994 by the Mooney family, it began almost by accident: a surplus of cow’s milk led to a soft, ricotta-style cheese that became its very first product. Today the dairy makes a range of fresh, soft-style cheeses on site, drawing on cow’s milk from neighbouring Yarra Valley farms and goat’s milk from the Mansfield region, in the tradition of the simple farmhouse cheeses of France and Italy.
The cellar-door cheese shop and tasting room occupy the property’s original milking shed, beautifully refurbished and looking out over the valley. It is best known as the home of the Persian Fetta, a soft cow’s-milk cheese marinated in fresh herbs, garlic and olive oil that established an entirely new style of cheese in Australia. The original recipe is still in use today.
Visitors can settle in for a cheese tasting, working through flights of the soft-cheese range, or order share platters and cafe-style food to eat in, including coffee and milkshakes. The shop sells the full cheese range alongside curated regional produce and local wines, and you can taste wine on site as well. A typical visit takes under an hour, and the eating area is small, so seating can be limited at busy times.
Yarra Valley Dairy is open daily from 10:30am to 5pm, closing on Christmas Day. It is an easy stop to fold into a day of touring the valley’s food and wine, with the working farm and historic milking shed giving the cellar door a genuine sense of place.