Sniffing out some Gruyère d’alpage

Jean-Louis Roch's infant Gruyère, freshly formed

I felt as though I knew Jean-Louis Roch long before I ever got near his famous cheeses. Research for my upcoming book on Swiss farmhouse fromages showed that this Fribourgeois cheesemaker had swept the board in the 2008 Swiss Cheese Awards with his Gruyère d’alpage.

This magnificent, seasonal cheese is the slightly smaller alpine cousin of regular Swiss Gruyère (now dignified with the title Le Gruyère AOC), and accounts for only a tiny proportion of the whole Le Gruyére AOC picture. The alpage variety is made only in the summer months, in small alpine dairies, from the raw milk of cows that come up on the alp in May and return to the valley at the end of September.

I made a mental note to catch up some time with Monsieur Roch and his cheeses, then got distracted with other things.

The other day, while tasting some of Renaud Burnier’s wines from the shores of Lake Murten, we got talking about cheese (as you do). A gleam came into Monsieur Burner’s eye. ‘There’s someone you have to meet’, he said. ‘Leave it with me’.

We met up early one Saturday morning,  set off through the lush green pre-alpine farming country of canton Fribourg and dived off up a single-track road just short of Albeuve. Up we climbed, accompanied by the sonorous chimes of distant cowbells. Just below the tree line we slid to a halt outside a small, slightly scruffy chalet. Brown and white calves peered curiously round a wall, some pink pigs snoozed contentedly in their pen below the chalet.

Inside the dairy, the cheesemaker, ruddy-faced, wreathed in smiles and sporting a single earring, thrust out a burly forearm to be shaken and introduced himself – ‘Jean-Louis Roch’. My hero! It was all I could do not to whip out my autograph book. Instead I made good use of notebook and camera.

A burnished copper vat like a giant mixer was filled to just below the rim with milk from Roch’s 46-strong herd, the fruit of last evening’s milk and this morning’s. Earlier the starter (which sets the milk off on its cheesy journey) and the rennet had been added. The whole mass now resembled trembling blancmange. In the background a lively fire crackled and glowed.

The curds, gently and rhythmically stirred with a pair of harp-like combs fitted into the giant mixer, soon began to resemble cottage cheese granules and to separate from the cloudy whey. Monsieur Roch took a handful from the vat, squeezed it firmly into a ball, grunted his satisfaction at the consistency and motioned to his son Sebastien.

Together they gripped the four corners of a large cheesecloth, leant in, scooped up a load of curds and lifted them high.

Next they gave the cheesecloth bag a bit of a squeeze and transferred it, dripping its surplus whey, to a plastic cheese ‘corset’ waiting on the other side of the dairy.

Monsieur Roch leant heavily on the curds to make sure they were well ensconced and patted the top smooth. The cheese was dated and numbered with his identification number: 6062. Later it would go down to the cellar to be salted overnight and then matured in the alpine cellar for 3 weeks before going down to the valley to the cellar of the cheese co-operative for further ageing.

Before we left Monsieur Roch selected an 18 month-old wheel of cheese from his cellar (he’s allowed to keep back some of his cheeses for sale on the premises) and carved us off a goodly chunk. We bore it home in triumph and have been nibbling reflectively on it ever since. Just one problem if you want to do the same: Gruyere d’alpage is available  in the shops but you’ll have difficulty identifying – or even obtaining – Monsieur Roch’s prize-winning wheels. The only place you can be sure to find them up in the dairy at La Théraulaz. Get out your hiking boots and set off up the Chemin des Comtes just short of Albeuve. Vaut le voyage…

Jean-Louis Roch
Alpage La Théraulaz
1669 Albeuve
Tel. 079 711 1859

Once upon an alp – above L’Etivaz

The alps above L'Etivaz in the Pays-d'Enhaut

The summer alpine cheeses are a priority for research for my book. Soon the hill farmers will come down from the alp so I needed to get a few under my belt before mid-September. I made a date with Claude-Alain Mottier, one of the 75 people to make L’Etivaz cheese during the summer months.  ‘What time should I be with you?’ I asked. ‘Well, we go out to fetch the cows at 7.30 a.m.’, came the answer.

Clearly I’d have to overnight somewhere close – no way I could get from Alsace up to the (aptly named) Pays-d’Enhaut in time for a 7.30 start. We discussed the small hotel in the village. Then Claude-Alain tentatively suggested we (Niko the photographer and I) might stay up at the chalet. ‘It’s only a dortoir (dormitory), but you’re welcome to stay if you like!’

A rendezvous was agreed with Claude-Alain’s wife Isabelle down in the village at 7 p.m. – she works part-time in the pharmacy in Chateau d’Oex and was just coming off duty. We would travel up to the alp together. Apparently we could drive a certain way, leave the car and then there would be a small téléphérique.

Isabelle and the teleferique

Isabelle called up on the intercom for them to put water on to boil for the potatoes up top, and then we piled rucksacks, cameras, tripods, the family’s clean laundry and fresh veggies from the farm down in the valley into the little cage. Then we clambered in and lurched off heavenwards.

Soon the cars were but a pinprick below and within minutes we were at the chalet Les Arpilles, a simple stone chalet with rough wooden floors, the cow byre down on the ground floor and the living quarters above.

Supper was a delicious, speedily assembled dish of rolled up ham with a fabulous sauce of thick cream skimmed off the morning’s milk turned a heavenly sunset colour by the addition of tomato puree. With them came waxy new potatoes that had gone onto the boil as soon as we arrived, and thick slices of pain paysan from the village baker.

I bagged the bed in the kitchen underneath a row of huge burnished cowbells (Niko drew the short straw in the dortoir upstairs) and fell asleep, lulled by the gentle tinkling of bells from the cows outside the chalet

the bell above my bed

Next morning there were noises off at 6.15 as Isabelle readied the dairy area, lit the fire, skimmed the milk and cleaned all the utensils for cheesemaking while Christof (the hired Polish hand) cleaned out the stable next door and put down new straw. We fetched the cows – they seem to like scrambling about up there on the steep hillsides and a few of them were manifestly unamused to be rounded up for milking.

Christoph helps round up the cows

Time for breakfast – more slabs of that heavenly bread and coffee liberally laced with thick cream from the regulation wooden bowl.

typical wooden cream bowl with its decorated wooden spoon

Once the milking was complete, the familiar cheesemaking ritual began – the milk was heated in the huge copper vat, the starter and rennet added to coagulate the milk, and the whole thing stirred and cut into curds with the harp-like tranche-caillé.

Claude-Alain goes to work with his harp

Next Claude-Alain and Isabelle together hoisted the curds out of the vat in the cheesecloth and squashed them firmly into the mould the other side of the dairy. Great teamwork – ‘what do you do if you don’t have a wife up on the alp?’ I asked. ‘You don’t make cheese’, grinned Claude-Alain.

the newly formed cheese is corseted by the mould

Later the cheeses would go under the press where they would stay overnight, then go down to the cellar and from there to the Cave Cooperative down in the valley, where they would be salted, brushed and ripened for anything from a few months to 2 years.

Another one to go into the book, for sure! And thanks to Isabelle and Claude-Alain for making this fabulous adventure possible…

A great croûte fleurie from Rougemont

milk churns outside Michel Beroud's dairy, Rougemont

Research for my book on Switzerland’s artisan cheeses is gathering pace. Last week I set off for L’Etivaz, taking in a quick visit en route to Michel Beroud in Rougement.

He is famous for his Fleurette, Tomme de Vache au Lait Cru – a small, flattish disc of deliciousness that runs about in a delightfully undisciplined and wholly un-Swiss way. Since I last visited him (over 10 years ago when I wrote about him and his cheeses for the Weekend FT), he’s built a new fromagerie just opposite the beautiful church of Rougemont.

The fromagerie in Rougemont

It was a delight to see the new dairy, to taste again his wonderful cheeses and to catch up on things since my last visit. Beroud uses only raw milk for his soft cheeses – rare in Switzerland, where most fromages à croûte fleurie are made with pasteurised milk (and therefore taste of soap). When he started 20 years ago, he was using just 30,000 litres of milk p.a. Nowadays he uses 650,000 litres. His Fleurette caught the attention of Frédy Girardet all those years ago, and this gave him a real leg-up. From there he’s gone from strength to strength.

Will definitely be including him in the book!