Vacherin Mont D'Or is Almost There!

Vacherin's off its planks, had its final wash & in it's sealed box cocoon for it's final step off affinage.Only a few weeks now and the first bacth will be ready for reaching your shores, ovens, spoons and mouths!

Cheddar in France? Surely Not?

When I think of French cheeses I think of the classics: Brie, Camembert, Munster, Epoisses, Beaufort, Comté. The soft, the washed rinds and the supple mountain cheeses. None of the textures and flavours we find with the hard British cheeses such as Cheddar, Gloucester, Leicester and the like. But there it was, hiding in the corner of the cave at Mons – an English Cheddar. Regarded suspiciously by the other affineurs, I give it a bit of English love and attention. But England’s most famous gift to the cheese world as a cheese style cannot be denied, can it? Apparently, in France, yes: “Ah, but we invented it first…” Surely not? I had to find out!

Searching around the cave I found cheeses with a similar texture and flavour – Cantal, Salers and Laguiole, native to the Auvergne region and neighbours (Central South France). These cheeses, however, have a different flavour profile from Cheddar, helped by the fact they have slight differences in production (but not much), different breeds of cows, different terroir, and they all form natural rinds (not cloth-bound like traditional British Cheddars).

In fact, I’d tasted these cheeses before in the UK and have never really been impressed, until an encounter with Ann-Marie of The Fine Cheese Company: the Cantal she had brought for me to taste was amazing, with a complexity of flavour and texture not easily rivalled. It had been aged by affineur Xavier Morin of Aurillac (who specialises in cheeses of the Auvergne), so I swallowed my Cheddar-ish British pride and went to meet him to see what I could learn.

All of Xavier Morin’s cheeses were fantastic, and beautifully aged; he really has a true connection with his terroir. His unique cave and tunnel, as well as his specialist affinage techniques, really contribute to the flavour of his cheeses. (You can buy some of them online at The Fine Cheese Co.’s website.)

After viewing his caves we went up into the mountains to view the fabrication of Salers. Salers de Buron is made only in the summer (actually 15th April – 15th November, though often cut short by the weather) in the mountains of the Auvergne region. Exclusively made on farms, the name comes from the small wooden huts called burons. The rich flora, under-sown by phosphorus, potash and magnesia soils, adds real depth to this cheese.

The fabrication of Salers starts immediately after the milking, and takes several days before the wheel is formed ready to be aged. Rennet-set (the quality of the milk has no need for commercial starters and ferments); it is then gently cut, pressed into blocks for 1½ hours with regular turnings, and then left to rest for a day, before being milled and salted. Then rested again before being pressed into its wheel shape for 48 hours. Affinage often takes place in small caves on the farm (although Xavier takes them straight after production and ages the cheese in his tunnel), with the natural flora, affinage temperature, humidity and process forming the rind. And when it’s finished, yes, it has a great flavour.

There are unfortunately less than 100 producers left for this labour-intensive cheese. I went to watch ‘Salers de Buron Traditional’. Even more traditional, even more hard work, with only eight producers left, what makes this cheese unique (and different to generic Salers de Buron) is that the cheese must be made with the milk of only the Salers cow, which gives only a tiny bit of rich flavoursome milk (seven litres per day, compared with 20+ litres for more commercial breeds).

The Salers cow looks big and aggressive with its huge horns. It is, however, the opposite: gentle, quiet and very maternal. The maternal instinct is what makes the cow a right pain to milk. At each milking the cow’s calf must be present. To milk the cows the farmer rejoins the calf with its mother by gently calling out for the name of the calf (knowing them all by heart) The calf obediently trots forward and lines up next to its mother. The suckling starts, and then it is gently removed and the cow milked normally. Without doing this, the cow refuses to be milked. That’s why there are less and less producers every year – every day starts at 4.30 in the morning and finishes at 10 each night, often to produce only one 30kg cheese. It’s also why Xavier, rather gallantly, does not add a margin when he sells ‘Salers Traditional’, giving all the profits back to the farmer.

Hervé Mons also champions this cheese, and does his best to promote and preserve it too. All those years ago (he won’t tell me how many!) when he was learning his trade, he did a whole summer season with Salers Traditional. His deep friendship with the old farmer Marcel has continued to this day. An early start to view the milking here was also in order. High in the mountains the farm hands travel out the cows to milk them in-situ using little one-legged stools. The milk is then returned to the buron, situated in the middle of nowhere, where the next generation of Salers producer is learning his trade. Several hours later, the process finished, he places a finished cheese in his small cave. Guarded by the cross of butter above the door (a superstitious ritual using the first milk of the season), the finished Salers rest, awaiting Hervé to turn up with his van and take them to his cave.

And as to who invented the ‘Cheddar’ recipe first, I think it depends who you ask… But I think - the clue is in the name!

By the way, we’ve got another intern here for a short while: Elizabeth Chubbuck is wholesale manager at Murray’s, and she’s with us for a week to get an idea what we do, before going to the promised land (England) for dairy tours and some time with Neal’s Yard Dairy. So I spend a few days with her explaining and showing her how we conduct the affinage here, whilst secretly, when Hervé isn’t listening, trying to persuade her that English cheeses are the best! But to no avail, a quick trip to Salers and she is in love with France, can’t blame her really.

It’s great to meet another keen cheese enthusiast and for those Americans interested, she’ll be running a course on what she's learnt at Murray’s, the iconic cheesemongers in New York, later this month.

It's Not All About Cheese

Just in case my cheese stories were starting to grate on you, I thought I’d give you a slice of some different action (two jokes in one – bargain!).

Whilst travelling around I’ve also visited some fantastic wine producers in Burgundy and here in the Côte Roannaise – I had to find something that would go with all this cheese I was eating. It all started with a gentle weaving cycle ride through the Puligny and Chassagne Montrachet vineyards before arriving at Meursault. Here we stopped at the negociants ‘Ropiteau’. Generally only available in on-licence (restaurants, hotels) in the UK, I’d never tasted their wines before. But a friend at Beacon Purchasing enabled me to visit their cellars to have a taste with their cellar-master, Nicolas Burnez and Ropiteau’s UK Manager Jean-Pierre Grangé. The wines were fabulous, classic Meursault taste with just the right hint of oak. Tasting straight from the barrel with their cellar-master was a real experience, as he hopped about the cave drawing off wine here and there. It also meant I could taste wines that weren’t quite ready and needed a bit longer to see how they develop.

After tasting quite a few wines, I mounted my bike and made my wobbly way through the vineyard lanes to Beaune. There I had an appointment with the export director of Louis Jadot. I’d tasted their wines before, working at The Balmoral Hotel and was looking forward to this tasting – their Burgundy pinot noirs are impressive. Here the operation was on a different scale to Ropiteau: Louis Jadot’s cave was as long as the eye could see, filled with bulging burgundy barrels (or pièces as they call them). This time I didn’t make the same mistake of drinking too much at the beginning of the tasting, but saved myself for the impressive premier and grand crus of the Côte de Nuits. Again, I’m not going to bore you with what they tasted like, just be assured that I left Louis Jadot in love with pinot noir!

When I returned back to the Roannaise, I visited a little producer named ‘Palais’, almost next door to the Mons affinage tunnel. A different story again here! Yann Palais has about three fields surrounding his farm and instead of following the appellation regulations he plants something a little different alongside Gamay – Gewurtztraminer, Viognier and Syrah. His small production is all done in his barn and he stores his wine in a tiny cellar. In this small home production he produces several lovely wines, which will perfectly suit my copious cheese supply.

It's Not All About Cheese

Just in case my cheese stories were starting to grate on you, I thought I’d give you a slice of some different action (two jokes in one – bargain!).

Whilst travelling around I’ve also visited some fantastic wine producers in Burgundy and here in the Côte Roannaise – I had to find something that would go with all this cheese I was eating. It all started with a gentle weaving cycle ride through the Puligny and Chassagne Montrachet vineyards before arriving at Meursault. Here we stopped at the negociants ‘Ropiteau’. Generally only available in on-licence (restaurants, hotels) in the UK, I’d never tasted their wines before. But a friend at Beacon Purchasing enabled me to visit their cellars to have a taste with their cellar-master, Nicolas Burnez and Ropiteau’s UK Manager Jean-Pierre Grangé. The wines were fabulous, classic Meursault taste with just the right hint of oak. Tasting straight from the barrel with their cellar-master was a real experience, as he hopped about the cave drawing off wine here and there. It also meant I could taste wines that weren’t quite ready and needed a bit longer to see how they develop.

After tasting quite a few wines, I mounted my bike and made my wobbly way through the vineyard lanes to Beaune. There I had an appointment with the export director of Louis Jadot. I’d tasted their wines before, working at The Balmoral Hotel and was looking forward to this tasting – their Burgundy pinot noirs are impressive. Here the operation was on a different scale to Ropiteau: Louis Jadot’s cave was as long as the eye could see, filled with bulging burgundy barrels (or pièces as they call them). This time I didn’t make the same mistake of drinking too much at the beginning of the tasting, but saved myself for the impressive premier and grand crus of the Côte de Nuits. Again, I’m not going to bore you with what they tasted like, just be assured that I left Louis Jadot in love with pinot noir!

When I returned back to the Roannaise, I visited a little producer named ‘Palais’, almost next door to the Mons affinage tunnel. A different story again here! Yann Palais has about three fields surrounding his farm and instead of following the appellation regulations he plants something a little different alongside Gamay – Gewurtztraminer, Viognier and Syrah. His small production is all done in his barn and he stores his wine in a tiny cellar. In this small home production he produces several lovely wines, which will perfectly suit my copious cheese supply.

A Bit of Science

Guilliame was over the moon. I could tell this because his normal gruff French expression had been replaced with the beginnings of a smile at the corner of his lips. And why? Because his Ossau Iratys had begun to get some small spots of red mould. “That bacteria,” he said, “looks good, and the Ossau taste even better.” So why had it been missing for the last few months? Problems with the Ossaus acidity and the micro-bacteria balance had meant it was not present. But luckily it had returned to the cave.

It got me thinking about moulds. At Mons there is an excellent balance, which has built up over many years. But they still need encouraging and pointing in the right direction – as we’d seen, that slight change in acidity with the production of Ossau had meant we’d lost our dear old red spotty friend. There are obvious ways you can encourage some bacteria – for example washing the Livarot and Epoisses twice weekly in a secret recipe, alongside keeping it in a humid atmosphere, helps it form ‘Brevibacterium linens’ - the orange mould responsible for the smell and flavour on washed rind cheeses.

However it’s not that simple with others: to encourage the blue penicillium spots you see on some goats cheeses (e.g. Crottin de Chavignol, Pouligny St. Pierre) we have to act in different ways. Some cheeses form it better on straw; others form it too fast and dry out too quickly on the straw. The expertise I’m picking up here is knowing when and where to put each cheese, not only according to type but also by how it arrives and how it is responding this week (this expertise has been built up by continuous testing of every possible variable over the last 40+ years). Simply, it’s the balance between the atmosphere, humidity and temperature to enable the correct moulds and yeasts to grow. We try to facilitate this by using different materials: wood, straw, paper, stone and earth. A slight change in either may mean a different mould or yeast may be more successful and a different product is produced.

Another example is our Lingot de St. Nicolas: we are trying to form a cream line beneath the rind, just thin enough to enhance the flavour but not so big so as to form frog-skin (when the rind and paste detach itself). The mould responsible is geotricum. Luckily our caves are full of it - but we have to catch the Lingot at the right time before it goes too far, whilst also making sure the other moulds present are also fully formed for the flavour!

When I leave I am going to have to take a lungful of air and hold my breath to take some of the air and moulds with me!

The pictures here show the evolution of (left) Tomme de Bois Noirs (a Mons speciality) and (right) Lavort. Forming the correct ‘mucos’ and initial rind takes the right conditions and handling; you can see the development to the final product. This affinage has developed the texture, smell, taste and rind to the point when it’s at its best; without correct affinage of the cheese the characteristic of each cheese won’t truly reveal itself to its full potential or may go too far, as bitter/rancid flavours, disagreeable odours and bad textures start to develop.

Spruce and Pseudomonas

Blimey, I could hate Americans. But not for any other reason than Hervé Mons has a promotion on at the moment with Gabeitou. It’s a delectable cows and sheeps milk cheese with a vegetal flavour and texture not dissimilar to Morbier. But in preparation for the promotion we have been taking all the farmers’ production for the last few weeks and maturing it so it will be ready to start sending to America next week. Tastes lovely, looks great, but over 600 to turn, change the spruce boards, and wash every week, on top of our normal workload of cheeses to manage - you had better like it, America!

The spruce boards on which our cheeses rest are an important feature in a top affineur’s cave. Although not cheap (and not light!) they have a natural biofilm, which is encouraged here by our cleaning methods, which keeps bad bacteria at bay whilst allowing the cheese to breathe. On the subject on ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ bacteria (perhaps a future George Lucas film?), I asked how they maintain the balance (which is regularly checked). A classic French answer - “good products”; but from my experience of working here I know it is also because of how we pay attention to cleaning (there is no fumigating kill-all here!), the components we use to aid different bacteria (e.g. straw, paper, wood, stone, steel), humidity, temperatures and air flow; in fact the caves have established a natural perfect atmosphere after 40+ years of having the world’s finest cheeses resting in them - so much so that when they created the new tunnel they transferred hundreds of cubic metres of air from the age-old caves to help start it off.

The regular checking of each cheese ensures those that could cause problems are quickly removed. In-between my regular cheese flipping and turning, something caught my eye - a batch of Selles sur Cher - but nuclear neon green. The quality control manager (Eric) examined them with a knowledgeable look, simply shrugged in a Gallic way, and said “Pseudomonas”. A bacterial problem caused at the milking parlour or production site. So I thought I’d dig deeper - was it a common problem? How does he deal with it? What are the common problems? He smiled (a knowing smile that a master gives their apprentice when the world is complicated and unfortunately there isn’t a simple one-sentence answer). As he begrudgingly placed the Selles sur Cher in the bin he explained that everyday posed a new problem; the wonders of artisan and small farm production lead to better flavours and interesting cheeses, yet also small daily problems because the methods of farm production are not controlled like those of larger efficient cheese-producing factories. Experience here seemed to be the key; the ability to identify the problem and continuous dialogue and visits to the small producers work brilliantly; and this is evident with the next batch of Selles sur Cher, which sits there content in its cave with no trace of the nuclear neon green - problem solved.

All is still going well here at Mons, I’m getting to taste an amazing array of different cheeses also at different ages, determining when each has affined to its peak; my palate is improving and my knowledge is increasing.

The master fromager of Fauchon (a famous Paris Boutique) stayed with us for a few days and that was thoroughly interesting: although he has only been in the industry a few years, his knowledge and ability to explain tastes is impressive, as good as any sommelier I’ve ever worked with. He came to study and converse with Hervé for a week as he has entered the competition for MOF (Meuilleur Ouverier de France) this year. The competition awards craftsman of France who excel in their field and is only given every four years (Hervé was the first ever recipient for a fromager/affineur). I looked at the guidelines and it’s like running the gauntlet; the French I work with even call it “running the challenge”: the depth of knowledge as well as the quality of products, cutting and presentation is immense. But I’m English - as my test I’d rather chase a piece of Gloucester cheese down a hill.

This weekend, to increase my cheese knowledge, I biked up to a nearby hill farm called Bois Blanc. I was greeted by Yves, a rustic French goat herder. On what was an amazing afternoon we started by chatting over his table in the farmhouse, about life, geography (and, importantly, cheese) before walking up the hill to see his small herd of goats. He has a range of breeds (naturally he affectionately points out his favourite animals), letting them graze freely on his grass which is full of herbs, flowers and wild grasses, all of which add a great flavour to the milk which is passed on to the cheese.

He milks the goats everyday, and then uses the milk to produce a small amount of farmhouse cheese in his little shed. This cheese is then sold on at markets and through local shops (including the local Mons shops), but only in small quantities as he barely has enough to sell (between 20-30 of these petit cheeses a day!)

The cheeses are a great expression of affinage, from his young just-set cheese (about 3 days) to his affiné (about a month old). They really tell a story of Yves’ farm’s terroir, goats and cheese-making techniques. Tasting the different cheeses is like tasting a tangible expression of time - you get a real sense of how affinage works. Everyone has a favourite age for their cheese, as the texture, taste, appearance and smell changes as time passes. These cheeses were mild, with only a delicate hint of goat flavour, and a lovely creamy freshness in the young, contrasting with a nice bite to the affiné.

Yves is a true artisan farmer in the real sense of the word; it was a pleasure to visit.

PS

I went back. I couldn’t help myself. Yves invited me to spend the day making cheese with him - how could I refuse passing the time with a big Frenchman making cheese in a shed no bigger than a cupboard. We were certainly going to get to know each other, if nothing else!

First we chucked yesterdays cheeses into the bin - a storm had arrived the day before and the change in air pressure, electrostatic fields, humidity and temperature had rendered the whole days batch useless.

Then we added the ‘petit lait’ to that morning’s milk and let it ferment for 20 hours. ‘Petit lait’ (or lactosérum) contains bacteria which starts the fermentation, changing lactose sugars (in milk) into lactic acid, and forming important flavours as it helps to form the curds. Most cheesemakers use freeze-dried or commercially made starters, but Yves, in the true spirit of capturing his terroir, uses his own bacteria from a ‘petit lait’ he creates at the beginning of the milk season by essentially letting the milk go off. This ‘petit lait’ is used for the first batch at the beginning of the season, for every subsequent production he uses a bit of leftover curds and whey (from the day before) to start the process off.

As the goats’ animal husbandry is fantastic, the unpasteurised milk poses no problems. By letting it naturally ferment he uses all the natural bacteria remaining present (usually killed by pasteurisation). This means he captures the true natural flavours of his land - the only thing he adds to his cheese that he doesn’t make himself is salt. However, it also means the cheese varies vastly in taste, flavour and texture; the production and affinage must be altered accordingly.

We had two buckets of goat milk from the same day’s milking - for some reason (Yves answer to my query was a Gallic shrug) one had formed a hard curd and the other much softer. So we carefully scooped the hard curd to form a base in the mould followed by a topping of soft. Yesterday’s cheeses were un-moulded, flipped, and salted; with a flick of the wrist that was best left to professional (when I tried, I managed to cover everything in the room with salt!)

While the moulds drained we took a break: a piece of fresh cheese wrapped in a salad leaf, so simple, so delectable! Over the next 2 hours continuous topping up of the cheese moulds took place, as they drained. After that our work was done, ready to start all over again the next morning.