Named for the cool climate rainforest of Robertson, Yarrawa is Australia's first non-cooked raw milk cheese, and it's made by Michael and Cressida Cains of Robertson's Pecora Dairy.

Mr Cains said the win was "really exciting".

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"We entered four cheeses - two got silver, two got gold, and one picked up the champion cheese of show, which was just amazing," he said, adding that the result is all the more satisfying because of the journey they had been on to make raw milk cheese in the first place.

The four cheeses were the Yarrawa (gold and three trophies), a raw milk feta (gold), Jamberoo Mountain Blue (silver) and Bloomy (silver).

He said the motivation to make raw milk cheese came from the wide array of complex flavours expressed by unpasteurised cheese, compared to the simplistic, easily-reproducable flavours of pasteurised milk cheeses.

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"This is a cheese that people once thought was too unsafe to make," he said.

"We had to get through all that with science and collaboration with the food authorities."

The laws around raw milk cheese-making changed in 2017, but he said the hoops thrown up to jump through by the regulations were just too onerous.

"We had to go back to drawing board and work it out," he said.

"People had come to know that one way of making a cheese safe is to pasteurise the milk, but fundamentally we know there's another way to make safe raw food.

"People will go along to the deli and buy salami and eat it - no one gives a through to the fact they're eating raw pork.

"If you make an environment that's salty and acidic and dehydrated enough and you age it, the pathogens deactivate over time.

"We know it's safe with smallgoods, and Europeans know it with cheeses - they've been doing it all along.

"We just needed to find the balance where the science meets the regulations, and gives everyone the confidence that raw milk cheeses aren't just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best."

He pointed out that most cheese made in Australia is made with standardised milk, limiting the number of interesting flavours the makers can extract.

Like a vintage of wine, raw milk allows factors such as the season, the weather and the particular micro-flora of the farm to influence the flavours.

"Raw milk cheese is great because it reflects the micro and macro aspects of farm. Both change depending on weather and season and so on - they combine to create a snapshot of what's happening on the farm at any one time."

Mr Cains said he was disappointed that COVID-19 prevented the usual special event that accompanies the selection of a national winner.

"It's usually a bit of a celebration, but I guess the trophy will just turn up in the mail," he said.