🧀 Chabichou du Poitou

Chabichou du Poitou is a French soft goat's cheese with a protected designation of origin (PDO), made exclusively from raw whole goat's milk. According to the specification, it is an unpressed, uncooked cheese, coagulated mainly by lactic acid with only a little rennet, lightly salted, with a thin rind bearing white, yellow or blue surface moulds.

Shape and marking. The cheese is a small truncated cone called a bonde, after the wooden bung of a barrel. At the end of the minimum ripening period it carries the mark "CdP" on top. It weighs at least 140 g, contains at least 18 g of fat per 100 g of finished cheese and at least 40 g of dry matter per cheese.

Making. The goats are Alpine, Saanen, Poitevine or their crosses. The milk is left to coagulate for at least 16 hours, the curd is ladled into perforated moulds, drains for at least 18 hours, is salted on the surface and dried for at least 24 hours. Ripening lasts at least ten days from renneting.

Taste and texture. The paste is white, firm, fine and homogeneous, yet naturally supple; in a young cheese it is melting. A young cheese tastes mild and milky; after several weeks the goat flavour becomes more marked and persistent, sometimes with notes of dried fruit and nuts, without excess salt, acidity or bitterness.

Production area. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening all take place in the Haut-Poitou: communes mainly in eastern Deux-Sèvres and western Vienne, and to a lesser extent in northern Charente. The name has been protected in the EU since 1996. The label must show the registered name and the EU PDO symbol.

It belongs to Soft cheeses with a bloomy rind and French cheeses.