For the fourteenth time, on September 25, 2010, the Swiss village of Les Charbonnières, canton Vaud, in the foothills of the Jura Mountains, celebrated the annual launch of Vacherin Mont-d’Or AOC cheese on the market.
The cheese is available late September to April in Swiss supermarkets and specialty shops. According to the head of the interprofessional Vacherin Mont-d’Or association, Pascal Monneron, some 70 tons of it are exported — mostly to France, but also further afield to Japan, with five tons going to Canada and the US.
There are thirteen producers and/or ‘’finishers’’ of Vacherin Mont-d’Or, working according to tightly controlled criteria in a carefully determined zone of production in Vaud where, according to Swiss federal-government ‘’AOC’’ regulation, the cheese may be made. (‘’AOC’’, for appellation d’origine contrôlée, is PDO in English, for protected designation of origin.) Vacherin Mont d’Or received AOC certification in 2003. About half of the thirteen producer/finishers are located in Les Charbonnières and surrounding villages.
The Vacherin Mont-d’Or AOC 2010 Fest
The 14th ‘’Fête du Vacherin Mont-d’Or AOC’’ was organized around the main square of Les Charbonnières, where sellers of Vacherin and other cheeses had set up stands, along with purveyors of sausages, breads, wine and fiery fruit brandies, and bakers of pies and cakes and meringues. Not only was all the food and drink locally made, so were the crafts, like carved wood farmhouses and animals. In line with a Swiss love of herbal home remedies was a seller of pomade made from marmot, chamois and badger fat mixed with a pleasing bouquet of mountain herbs.
Along with food and drink tents, there were: speeches, music, folk dance, and other entertainment like alphorn players, flag-throwers, whip-crackers, and cowbell ringers—all traditional Swiss folk customs. Not least, there was the désalpe: the coming down from summer pastures of local herds, sheep and mainly cows, all of the animals wearing bells, and some cows adorned with headdresses made of flowers, branches, and crepe paper pompoms and tassels.
According to André Meylan, retired head of the Vacherin Mont-d’Or interprofessional association, some 4,000 visitors attended the festivities in 2009, considered a good turnout for a fest that, Meylan says, stays resolutely unglammed up, relatively small, and authentic. It appeals to Vaudois, some other Swiss, French from just over the border, with the occasional expat from Geneva and Vaud’s large communities of ‘’internationals’’ wandering through.
Vacherin Mont-d’Or AOC Cheese
Vacherin Mont-d’Or stands out first and foremost for its packaging: a round, white-ish spruce box with the name of the producer/finisher stamped in dark brown on the lid. Lift the lid, and discover an orangey-yellow ‘’crust’’ that is firmer than the rest of the cheese but is by no means a hard crust. Another one of Vacherin Mont d’Or’s characteristics is that this supple crust has a rippled look.
The cheese comes in four sizes, from 350 gr (.77 lbs) to 3 k (6.6 lbs).
Ripe, the cheese under the crust, a pale yellow color, is soft; very ripe, and it’s spoonable. Its rich creaminess is enhanced by woody notes from a strip of spruce bark that encircles the cheese inside the box.
The name ‘’vacherin’’ is said to have come into being to distinguish it from ‘’chevrotin’’, a goat’s milk cheese (chèvre means goat, vache means cow). By the 19th century, raw-milk Vacherin was already established as a fine cheese from the Les Charbonnières area. Nowadays, Vacherin is made from thermized cow’s milk. The craftsman who makes the present-day boxes for the cheese is located in a neighboring village, while there is a sangleur (a producer of the spruce bark strips known as sangles that encircle the cheese) in Les Charbonnières itself.
Vacherin Mont-d’Or AOC: A Meal on its Own
In Switzerland, the cheese is enjoyed as a fall/winter delicacy, often as a meal unto itself, with small, boiled jacket potatoes or the buttery, parboiled-then-grated-potato pancakes called rösti. Some people serve slabs of ham with that; another option is a green salad. Crunchy farm bread may also be a part of the equation, or gherkins and picked pearl onions such as are eaten with fondue or raclette.
Some people eat the crust of the cheese; many don’t.
Another way of enjoying the cheese is baked. Take the lid off, and wrap the bottom part of the box in aluminum foil. Take a fork and prick some holes in the cheese crust (as one would with a pie), slip in a few fresh garlic cloves, and pour some dry white wine over it. Then bake in a pre-heated 200° C (392° F) oven for about 25 minutes until completely liquid.
Some prefer to spoon the hot liquid cheese onto boiled jacket potatoes or directly onto slabs of farm bread, and eat this on its own or accompanied by the items mentioned above. Others dip pieces of bread into the melted cheese, fondue-style. Connoisseurs advise that if you are having guests, rather than buy a large cheese, bake a number of small ones one after the other to make sure the cheese is served optimally hot and that the liquid texture is retained.
More about Vacherin Mont-d’Or AOC
During Vacherin Mont-d’Or season, from September 15 through March, stop by Vacherin Le Pèlerin, a Vacherin finisher, in Les Charbonnières. Their store is then open every day of the week, and they sell many other local products —including goat’s and ewe’s milk cheeses, sausages, honey, a digestive made from gentian, and —a great area favorite—snails. They also sell local wines, red or white, that taste best with Vacherin Mont-d’Or. For groups, they will by advance appointment also open their charming small Vacherin Mont-d’Or museum.
Gail Mangold-Vine - Based in Geneva, Switzerland, Gail Mangold-Vine is the author of two books. Her work as a journalist is published worldwide.
