What is Vacherin cheese?
If you haven’t indulged in winter’s cheese harvest yet, then get your groove on. It may be Les Mis outside, but we have Vacherin until March.
Vacherin is a 🇫🇷 French/Swiss🇨🇭 wash rind cow's milk (French vache, "cow") cheese and is only produced in the winter months.
In summer time, these cows are up in the Alpine mountain meadows gorging on the buttercups and grasses and producing an abundance of milk which makes the lovely Comte and Gruyere 🐄🏔
Come winter time, the cows jourey down the mountain to the warm barns where their milk is sparse but oh so rich, creamy and buttery. It’s this fatty stuff that is used to make the one and only Vacherin 🙌
It’s wrapped in spruce bark which gives mega interesting pine needle and forest floor notes to the flavour 🌲 🍄🍂
It gets gooier as the winter progresses, so right now ➡️ is prime.
Cut it open the peachy, cloudy rind and scoop it out with a spoon (or your hand) for rich, clotted cream like goo.
🇫🇷 or🇨🇭? The main diff is Swiss ‘Vacherin Mont d’or’ is thermised milk where the French ‘Vacherin du Haut-Doubs’ is raw milk
WHAT PAIRS WELL?
Drink high acid wines like English traditional method sparkles, German or Austrian Riesling, Chablis. Listen to Nina Simone or Dave Brubeck. Just be cool as hell .