🧀 Reblochon

Reblochon (also Reblochon de Savoie) is a French uncooked pressed cheese made from raw whole cow's milk in the mountains of Haute-Savoie and part of Savoie. The names are protected in the EU as a PDO, registered in 1996 (eAmbrosia PDO-FR-0130).

According to the specification, the milk comes from herds of Abondance, Montbéliarde or Tarentaise cows. The feed is mainly fodder from the area: grass grazed in summer (at least 150 days of grazing) and hay in winter. Silage, fermented fodder and wrapped bales are not allowed, and supplementary feed is limited to 1,800 kg of concentrates and dehydrated fodder per dairy cow per year. Milk production, milking, cheesemaking and maturing all take place in the defined area. Cheesemaking, pre-ripening and ripening last at least 15 days from renneting, so the cheese cannot leave the dairy or the cellar before the 16th day.

The cheese is a flat, slightly tapered cylinder about 14 cm across and 3.5 cm high, weighing 450-550 g. The smaller Reblochon, which may be labelled petit, is about 9 cm across and 3 cm high and weighs 230-280 g. The rind is fine, regular and washed during maturing, yellow to orange-yellow, and may be covered in a fine short white bloom. The paste is barely firm, homogeneous, supple and smooth, cream to yellowish ivory, lightly salted, with small perforations possible. Fat is at least 45 g per 100 g of dry matter and dry matter at least 45 g per 100 g of cheese.

The cheese is first packed in the area before leaving the maturing cellar, with a false bottom made of spruce wood. The label must show the name in characters at least two thirds the size of the largest on the label, together with the EU PDO logo. The specification explains the name from the French word reblâche, meaning to milk a second time, a practice dating from the 13th century.