🧀 Mont d'Or

Mont d'Or, also registered as Vacherin du Haut-Doubs, is a French cheese with a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), made only from raw whole cow's milk set with rennet. It is a soft, uncooked, lightly pressed cheese in the shape of a flat cylinder, bound with a spruce strap and ripened in a spruce box.

Milk and zone. According to the specification, the milk comes only from Montbéliarde or French Simmental cows, or crosses of the two. Silage and other fermented feed are banned on the farm all year, and there must be at least one hectare of grassland per dairy cow. Milk production, cheesemaking, ripening and boxing all take place at an altitude of at least 700 metres, in listed communes of the Doubs department.

Making and ripening. The cheese is made from 15 August to 15 March. After moulding, the curd is wrapped in a spruce strap. The cheese rests on spruce boards, where it is turned and rubbed by hand, and finishes ripening in a spruce box. Ripening lasts at least 21 days from renneting.

Look and taste. The paste is white to ivory, creamy and lightly salted; the washed, lightly bloomed rind is yellow to light brown. A cheese weighs 480 g to 3.2 kg including the box and contains at least 45 g of fat per 100 g of dry matter. The specification says the strap gives woody aromas and flavours.

Sale and labelling. The cheese reaches consumers only from 10 September to 10 May, whole, in its individual spruce box. The name, the EU PDO logo and the name of the maker are marked on the rim of the box.

History. According to the specification, the cheese dates from the 12th century, when the high Jura pastures were cleared under the abbeys of Saint-Claude and Montbenoît; the strap and the box come from local woodworking.