🧀 Gruyère

Gruyère is a hard cheese made from raw cow's milk. Swiss Le Gruyère is registered as a protected designation of origin (AOP); its specification sets the production area as the cantons of Fribourg, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Jura, parts of Bern and some listed communes in other cantons. ¹

Under the Swiss specification, the milk receives no treatment and is processed in open copper vats of at most 6,600 litres; rennet is added at about 31 °C, additives are forbidden, and silage feed is prohibited for the cows. The cheese must be at least 5 months old when it leaves the ripening cellars, which must be in Switzerland. ¹

The wheel is round, 55–65 cm across and 9.5–12 cm high, and weighs 25–40 kg. Holes are desirable but not essential and are mostly 4–6 mm. The paste is ivory, supple and of medium firmness, and the flavour is dominated by fruity notes with a more or less salty accent. ¹

Fat is 49–53 % of dry matter, water 34.5–36.9 % and salt 1.1–1.7 %. After salting, dry or in brine, the wheels mature at 12–18 °C and about 92 % humidity on raw spruce boards. ¹

Gruyère d'Alpage is the summer version: both milk and cheese must be produced on the alpine pasture, and only while the pasture can supply the herd's basic forage. ¹

Cheesemaking in the region is traced back to 1115, and medieval chronicles describe its full-fat cheese, which was also sold in France and Italy. The 17th century brought recognition of the name and an export boom; the word entered the Académie française dictionary in 1762. Emigration from Fribourg in the 18th and 19th centuries spread production to Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura and France, and imitations followed. Gruyère received a national AOC in 2001 and European AOP protection in 2011. ²

Why it matters to you. The AOP mark means the Swiss rules above apply, including raw milk and at least 5 months of ageing. France has a separate Gruyère PGI, so the word alone does not tell you which cheese you are buying. ¹³