Morbier is a semi-soft cow’s milk cheese named after the small village of Morbier in Franche-Comté. The cheese has an ivory colour, and it is a bit soft and fairly elastic. It gets immediately identified because of its black layer of tasteless ash, which separates horizontally in the middle. Earlier, Morbier was made by a layer of the morning and the evening milk, but these days it is made by a single milking, while ash is added to it to follow the tradition. The cheese takes about 45 days to 3 months for full maturation with yellowish, moist and leathery rind.
Together with 45% fat, it is protected by AOC designation. Morbier has a rich and creamy flavour with small eyes or holes. Sometimes, the cheese leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste and has strong aroma as well. Try this cheese with Gewurztraminer or Pinot Noir.

Morbier

Entremont

The characteristics of this small, fermier or artisanal goat's milk cheese from Lyon are the blue mould and reddish rind that appear after a aging for two to four week. The cheese has a strong taste of salt.

Mont D'or Lyonnais

Fromagerie Les Longevilles Arnaud

Reblochon AOC is a semi-soft, washed-rind and smear-ripened mountain cheese that originated at the heart of the massif des Aravis, in the Thônes region of Haute-Savoie in France. The cheese was decreed as an A.O.C. cheese in 1958 and therefore is subject follow to strict rules and regulations.

It is a lightly pressed, uncooked cheese, made from full-cream unpasteurised milk. Thirteenth century fables tell of Savoie herdsmen who carried out an incomplete milking of the cows in order to reduce their ‘taxable’ production of milk. After the rent was paid to the landowners, they went back to ‘remilk' (reblocher) the cows. The second milking of cows yielded a milk rich in fat and was used to make Reblochon.

Reblochon features a fine velvety rind, varying from yellow to orange in colour. The close textured pate is very smooth, supple and ivory in colour. Farmhouse cheese discs are matured for at least two weeks, during which the cheese develops an edible light beige crust and buttery dough. 

Reblochon has a slight scent of the cellar and a mild fruity taste with an intense nutty aftertaste. Its delicate and subtle flavours go well with a glass of Savoie wine. The cheese is excellent on the cheeseboard or can be melted on baked potatoes. Reblochon also features as a classic ingredient in one of the Alps' best-loved dishes, the Tartiflette.

This celebrated cheese recently won Bronze medal at 2014 World Cheese Awards.

Reblochon

Pochat et Fils

Marie Harel created the original Camembert cheese from raw milk in Normandy, France in 1791. Today, however, a very small percentage of producers make cheese from raw milk with the same process as Marie Harel would have used. Those who produce cheese using Marie Harel's method, can legally call their cheese "Camembert de Normandie" under the AOC guidelines. However, the production of Camembert cheese has now transcended the AOC designation. Very good varieties of Camembert cheese made from pasteurised milk can be found in Normandy today.

Fresh Camembert cheese is bland, hard and crumbly in texture. Young Camembert has a milky and sweet taste. As the cheese matures it forms a smooth, runny interior and a white bloomy rind that is typical of Camembert cheese. It has a rich, buttery flavour. The rind is bloomy white caused by a white fungus, called Penicillium candidum.The rind is meant to be eaten with the cheese.

This cheese is best paired with a light red wine such as Beaujolais, Chenin Blanc, St Emilion, St Estephe, or traditionally a glass of Normandy cider.

Camembert

Raclette is a semi-hard cheese made on both sides of the French and Swiss Alps. Valais Raclette or Fromage a Raclette, as they are traditionally called, are made using ancestral methods with unpasteurised milk of cows grazing on the alpine meadows.

The name Raclette comes from the French word ‘racler’, which means ‘to scrape’. The cheese has got a thin, brownish-orange coloured rind and a pale yellow pate with a few and scattered open holes. It is has a very distinctive pleasant, aromatic smell with a creamy texture, similar to Gruyere cheeses, which does not separate even when melted.

The flavour can vary from nutty, slightly acidic to milky. While Switzerland supplies 80% of Raclettes, French Raclettes are slightly softer with a smooth and creamy flavour. Raclette is also the name of a Swiss dish where the cheese is melted in front of a fire or a special machine and the melted parts are scraped onto diner’s plates.

It is then served with small potatoes, gherkins, pickled onions and air dried meat called Viande des Grisons. Raclette comes in round and square shapes and can be served with Vin de Savoie.

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