🧀 Tome des Bauges

Tome des Bauges is a French cheese with a protected designation of origin (PDO): a pressed, salted cheese with surface mould, made from raw cow's milk, whole or semi-skimmed, in the Bauges massif in Savoie and Haute-Savoie. The registered name is written with one "m".

Milk and feed. The herds are made up of Abondance, Montbéliarde and Tarentaise cows, at least 55% of them Abondance and Tarentaise, with an average of no more than 6,000 kg of milk per cow a year. In summer, for at least 120 days, the basic ration is pasture grass; in winter it is hay, of which no more than 20% may come from outside the area. Silage and any other fermented fodder are banned, and so are genetically modified feed and crops. The milk comes from farms within 15 km by road of the dairy.

Making. Only raw milk is used, with salt, rennet and starter cultures. According to the 2006 summary, the milk is set at 32 to 35 °C in an open copper vat. The curd is cut to the size of a maize kernel; if the curd and whey are heated, the temperature must not exceed 40 °C. The cheeses are moulded, pressed, salted and ripened for at least five weeks.

Look and taste. A cylinder 18 to 20 cm across and 3 to 5 cm high, weighing 1.1 to 1.4 kg when ripe. The surface is ridged, with a grey rind 2 to 3 mm thick that may have yellow to brown patches of natural mould. The paste is pale yellow, slightly firm to flexible, sometimes with small holes. It contains at least 45 g of fat per 100 g of cheese after total desiccation. According to the specification, the texture melts in the mouth, the smell is clean and the flavours are balanced.

Area and labelling. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening all take place in named municipalities of Savoie and Haute-Savoie. The cheese may be sold whole or in portions, each with the rind on three sides, and it bears the name and the EU PDO symbol.