Since 1998, artisan cheese makers Miles and Janet King have quietly created a broad series of supreme ewe as well as cow's milk cheeses on their idyllic 30-acre farm on the outskirts of Masterton, New Zealand.
Kingsmeade started out making ewe's milk cheeses with milk from their own flock of East Friesian sheep. Clover, chicory, plantain and lucerne cover broad, green meadows. The sheep allow, contented and also loaded with personality-- no need to round them up at milking time, they listen to Miles' voice as well as begin their own.
After years of hands on care, meticulous records and genetic studies, Miles' flock has turned into New Zealand's first registered sheep milking breed - Dairymeade.
Today, Kingsmeade makes 9 different varieties of cheese, the majority of from ewe's milk and some from cow's. All are uniquely hand crafted, varying from aged hard varieties to deliciously creamy.
Tranquility as well as silently spoken, Miles is hands-on from the first steamy breath of the newborn lambs to the daily milking, cheesemaking, cutting as well as packaging. Each batch of cheese is hand made in the manufacturing facility on the farm, appropriate alongside the family home. Janet runs the distribution, cheerfully dispatching orders all over New Zealand.