I recently tasted a great new cheese, St Eadburgha, from a farm on the edge of the Cotswolds. It’s soft, creamy, gooey and full-flavoured with hints of mushrooms and bitter chocolate. It goes really well with Bourgogne Rouge 2001 from Jean Raphet. Michael Stacey has an organic dairy farm at Willersey, just outside the pretty, tourist village of Broadway. With the plummeting milk price – I know its not plummeting in the supermarkets but the price to farmers is now virtually less than the cost of production – he has decided to do something about it. He has always made a bit of cheese for himself and now he makes it for others. He goes to three farmers’ markets where he sells all he produces, and is now installing a bigger vat and a new cheese room. It will still be quite small but big enough to supply some shops too.
Michael also makes St Kenelm which has a harder texture with an interesting and complex flavour yet quite mild – reminds me of fresh flowers. I think it is even better that St Eadburgha.
Waterloo is a stunning cheese from Anne Wigmore; full of flavour, as soft as Brie or Camembert but far sturdier in character.
Chinon Les Varennes du Grand Clos 2003: Domaine Joguet
The red wines of the Loire can be tricky to produce and variable in quality. The Loire is, after all, one of the most northerly areas where grapes can be expected to ripen regularly. I find that Chinon, with its impressive Château overlooking the River Vienne near its confluence with the Loire, consistently offers the best red wines from the Loire.
The Château was originally three separate castles and was fortified as long ago as the 12th century by the Counts of Anjou and the Kings of England. It is famous as being the place where Henry II of England died in 1189, and where Joan of Arc met Charles VII of France in 1429. Today it is easy to imagine oneself back in those times as the cobbled streets of the old town are without cars and are lined with ancient houses of wood, brick and stone.
The vineyards which surround Chinon have been planted since time immemorial and are on two major soil types: sandy gravel producing light, fruity wines for early drinking; and limestone which produces wines of greater structure which can age beautifully. In all some 1,900 hectares on which the Cabernet Franc grape achieves greatness. It does not like climates which are excessively hot, and the mild climate of the Loire suits it perfectly. Often regarded as the poor relation of the grapes grown in Bordeaux, here it reigns supreme, giving wines with wonderful higher notes of grassy herbaceous fruit balanced by an attractive earthiness which gives them structure and staying power.
Charles Joguet was first and foremost a philosopher, poet and sculptor, for which he trained in Paris, only becoming a vigneron following his father’s death in 1957. He and his widowed mother set about doing something with their vineyards. Charles brought his intellect to winemaking. Hitherto, like other vignerons at the time, his father simply sold the wine in bulk, but Charles had the idea of not only selling it in bottle but keeping the wines from each parcel of vines separate so that they would really reflect their terroir. He also decided to keep the wine from vines of different ages separate. Not for Charles the usual practice, at the time, of blending to produce a single cuvée. He was constantly innovating: new plantings, re-plantings, using only cuttings from his own vines when replanting, limiting yields, using stainless steel vats, picking into smaller crates so as not to crush the grapes prematurely. It was to be hard work but ultimately very rewarding, with Charles being recognised as a gifted winemaker and something of a living legend.
In 1997, forty years after taking over the domaine, Charles decided to “pass the torch” to colleagues and friends with whom he was already working and whose “philosophy resonates with my own values and concepts”. It was to take three men to fill the gap left by Charles. Ownership of the domaine passed to Jacques Genet with Alain Delaunay looking after the commercial activities and, since 2005, Francois-Xavier Barc responsible for the winemaking. Charles Joguet was a hard act to follow.
Les Varennes du Grand Clos is a 4½ hectare parcel of vines planted between 1962 and 1976. It sits on clay-chalk soil with some silica, at the foot of a gravely terrace on the left bank of the River Vienne in Sazilly, some 8 km to the east of Chinon. The 2003 is still young but partnered Luc Dongé’s Brie de Meaux extremely well. The lovely, refined, fruity nose presages a rich, concentrated wine with plenty of blackcurrant and raspberry ripe fruit, but some woody tannins need a little more time to blend with the fruit. Francois-Xavier says that the 2003 harvest began on 18th September, two weeks earlier than usual and the earliest in the history of the domaine, finishing on 3rd October, which is when it normally begins! Practically all the bunches of grapes were fully ripe with high sugar levels.
The wines of Chinon were praised in the 16th century by the writer Rabelais, Chinon’s most famous son, who is commemorated on the labels of Domaine Joguet. One wonders, however, whether it would not be more fitting to commemorate another intellectual, Charles Joguet himself.
As an alternative match for Luc’s cheese, I have no hesitation in returning to Burgundy, as I find Burgundies, especially the reds but also the whites, offer some of the best matches for many soft cheeses. A Burgundy I would chose for this cheese is the simple Bourgogne En Bully 2004 from Rapet Père et Fils in Pernand-Vergelesses, just north of Beaune. The estate is very old and Vincent Rapet treasures a wine-tasting cup, dating from 1792, which belonged to one of his ancestors. It is fuller than the Chinon and red Burgundies are, in general, perhaps more reliable partners to cheeses such as Brie de Meaux.
Appellation Contrôlée – Roughly translated it means la crème de la crème
So went the slogan promoting French cheeses. But it is more than a slogan because it has more than a grain of truth in it. By controlling the methods and areas of production, standards and authenticity are maintained. Cheddar is uncontrolled and the result is a huge amount of low-standard cheeses; Stilton has been controlled since 1936 and the result is, by and large, cheeses which are at least acceptable. The French set up their Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) system in 1935 and recently, in 1992, the European Union set up their Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) scheme which includes a number of British cheeses. Both schemes protect a variety of foods and drinks and work by specifying the place of origin of a product, which can be right down to individual fields, and methods of production. In the case of cheeses, control factors can include the type and breed of animal, feeding routines - such as feeding hay not silage in winter for instance - whether the milk may be pasteurised and length of affinage.
The Pasteurisation Debate
Brie de Meaux is one of many French cheeses where the appellation contrôlée specifies that the cheese must be made from unpasteurised milk. Pasteurisation has both benefits and disadvantages. Its principal purpose is to destroy potentially harmful bacteria, but it has a number of side effects. These include:
Standardising the flavour of the milk, reducing seasonal variations
Destroying beneficial as well as harmful bacteria
Inactivating flavour-giving enzymes, resulting in cheeses which lack character
Retarding the action of rennet
Damaging proteins, fats and minerals leading to a loss of nutrition and taste
Destroying some vitamins
By good animal husbandry, the use of effective starter cultures, correct drying of the cheese, control of acidity and other factors, it is possible to ensure the hygienic purity of the cheese without resorting to pasteurisation.
Despite a few popular misconceptions, I am not aware of any government advice to avoid eating unpasteurised cheeses. Indeed I believe that the right to make and sell unpasteurised cheeses is enshrined in EU law. The Food Standards Agency web site says: “In order to avoid the risk of listeriosis, pregnant women are advised to avoid eating ripened soft cheeses of the Brie, Camembert and blue-veined types, whether pasteurised or unpasteurised.” It is worth noting that it is the style of cheese they are worried about not whether or not it is pasteurised. Hard
cheeses like Cheddar or Parmesan or not covered and, in any case, the advice is for pregnant women only, although I might add other ‘at risk’ groups, whose natural immunity is compromised. For normal, healthy adults the risks of eating unpasteurised cheeses are minimal; food-related illness statistics, in fact, reveal that there is more chance of becoming ill by eating salads than cheese.
ITALIAN TAPAS
Parmigiano Reggiano: Giorgio Cravero and Guido Bianchi
In the plain formed by the River Po, and nestling under the Apennine hills, lie the cities of Parma and Reggio Emilia that have given their names to the unique and wonderful cheese called Parmigiano Reggiano.
A special treat for me is to sit with a hunk – there’s no other word for it – of Parmigiano, breaking off little pieces to nibble at, while sipping a glass of chilled Manzanilla or dry Oloroso sherry and gently passing the time with friends. The cheese, which provides me with so much pleasure, is still made in essentially the same way as it has been for at least seven centuries, and probably longer, since Benedictine monks drained the marshland and started grazing cattle.
Unlike other cheeses, where the maker is king, the need to mature Parmigiano, often for many years, means that here the man who finances the maturing is king. Indeed, maturing the cheeses is considered more as a banking operation than a craft. With most cheeses, I can easily take you to my favourite maker; but in Parma and Modena it is necessary to pass through the labyrinthine web of dealers, selectors, maturers and wholesalers which surrounds Parmigiano production with secrecy and obscures the identity of individual makers. This system transfers to the dealers all responsibility for sales and marketing methods and the reputations which go with it. ‘Provenance’ for Parmigiano refers more to the finance house than the maker.
The farms producing the milk for Parmigiano are small, the average herd size being just 20 cows; not enough to make cheese individually, so cooperative dairies are the norm. Quality obviously varies from dairy to dairy and one relies on a maturer, such as Giorgio Cravero whose family have been doing just this for five generations, to select good quality cheeses. I love the cheeses Giorgio selects. They have the crystalline, grainy, crunchy texture typical of Parmigiano, yet melt on the tongue, and really come into a different league of flavour, which soars with excellent, light, high notes and an underlying power; spicy but not sharp, rich in spite of its low fat content, sweet yet nutty, strong but not overpowering.
The system has worked well but there are signs of change. The number of dairies has dropped from 1,652 in 1970 to some 500 today. As a result, many of these are now larger. With increased size comes the possibility of maturing their own cheeses and creating their own identity. A number of farmers with their own herds, who have traditionally sold their cheeses to maturers, are now beginning to keep some themselves and sell them ready aged, cutting out the middle man and preserving their own identity in their cheeses.
And then there are those like the Bianchi family, who have their own 40 hectare farm, who are members of the local cooperative, where their cheese is made, and who then age their cheeses and sell them themselves. In effect they are using the cooperative as an expert ‘contract’ maker. Guido Bianchi, the head of the family, lives on the farm at Basilicanova but his son, Michael, now manages the herd and the milking, which takes place twice a day at 3 o’clock both in the morning and afternoon. As with all farms on the River Po plain, his 250 Friesian cows are kept inside all year round because land is so scarce and valuable. But Michael has recently experimented with allowing the cows out to graze before and after calving. He is a caring person, fond of music, and looks forward to the day when all his cows can roam freely. Mind you, the tobacco-scented hay, which Michael feeds to the cows, is superb; made from Graminacee for fibre and Leguminose for protein, it is full of goodness.
At the Santo Stefano dairy, Pietro Lelli, a second-generation master cheesemaker, oversees the cheesemaking. Milk from the Bianchi farm is kept separate so that Guido’s cheeses can be identified with a red ‘C’ at the end of the process. Out of a total of 60 cheeses made each day by Pietro, 7 cheeses are Guido’s.
The production starts when the evening milk arrives and is pumped into shallow vats and left overnight for the cream to rise to the top. In the morning the milk is partly skimmed and mixed with full-cream morning milk, fresh from the cows, and a little of yesterday’s whey which acidifies the milk. Once in the deep conical shaped vats, which nowadays are partly underground to facilitate the process, the milk is heated to 30˚-35˚c, rennet is added and, once the curds have formed, stirred vigorously with a giant, long-handled whisk so that the curd is cut into pieces the size of wheat grains and the temperature is, eventually, raised to 55˚c (hotter than for most other cheeses).
When Pietro decides it is time, the curd is scooped into a large, square cloth with wooden paddles and removed from the vat. Two cheeses are made from each vat and very heavy work it is for the men involved. Each cheese weighs in excess of 40 kg. Wrapped in its cloth jacket, the new cheese is placed in a wooden or plastic girdle and left to drain for the rest of the day. In the late afternoon the girdle and cloth are removed, to be replaced by a metal mould, inside which is a stencil sheet which imprints, in pin dots all over the rind: the distinctive Parmigiano Reggiano logo, the date of make and the dairy’s identification number. The cheeses stay three days in these metal moulds and then up to four weeks in huge metal cages submerged in a heavy brine solution.
They are then ready to be transferred to large maturing rooms where they patiently await inspection by the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano Reggiano. During this period of waiting, they are regularly turned and brushed with dry salt. If they meet the rigorous standards of the Consorzio, they are rewarded by being branded with a hot iron. If they fail the test, they are consigned to those little tubs of grated cheese that are such a blot on Parmigiano’s reputation. As Aristide, Guido’s third son, explained, this examination is conducted by gently tapping the cheese with a small hammer and listening for its ‘song’. A sweet song and the cheese passes with flying colours; a few discordant notes and failure is assured. Eventually they are moved to Guido’s headquarters in Parma’s famous Via Trento which was the original centre of the Parmigiano trade, to wait still longer, until Guido or his eldest son, Alberto, decide they are ready for sale.
A few numbers:
251,000 cows produce the milk on
4,750 farms which supply the milk to
492 dairies which make
3,136,191 wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano each year using
16 litres of milk for each kilo of cheese or
600 litres for each whole cheese
Other really hard nibbling cheeses
Really hard nibbling cheeses are to be savoured in small quantities and it is probably one of these that I would take to my desert island. Certainly Rachel took some Extra Mature Gouda to the rainforest where it lasted 10 days in the heat of the jungle, without refrigeration, until finally consumed.
Grana Padano is nearly identical to Parmigiano Reggiano, except that it is produced in a neighbouring province. It is generally sold a little younger so it is marginally softer, moister and more fruity.
Sbrinz, almost certainly the cheese referred to by Pliny as Caseus Helveticus, is believed to be the original which the Italians copied for Parmigiano Reggiano. Whatever the truth, it is a great cheese, slightly creamier than Parmigiano but otherwise very similar.
Proper old matured Gouda is so totally different to the rubbish that is usually sold as Gouda as to be considered a different cheese altogether. At 2 or 3 years of age, it is hard and crumbly, often crystalline, tangy with a hint of butterscotch.
Mimolette was first produced in the 17th century in north-east France at a time when the import of Dutch cheeses was banned. Hence it is similar in nearly all respects to aged Gouda except that it is a deep russet colour, is spherical in shape and is attacked by cheese mites as part of the maturing process, leaving it pitted and lo
oking somewhat like a rusty old cannonball.
Coolea is a cheese made in south-west Ireland in the style of Gouda by a Dutchman called Dick Willems and it is exceptionally good.
Pecorino is the Italian word for sheep and is used to describe any cheese made from sheep’s milk; so the variety of styles, textures and qualities is extremely wide. Many come from Sardinia and are very good. In Rome they serve the local variety, Romano. But I like best the aged cheeses made in Tuscany, with their intense, savoury, herby, peppery flavours.
Tête de Moine is a Swiss speciality. To eat it you need a machine called a ‘Girolle’ which will shave wafer-thin slices of cheese into delicate rosettes. These make unusual and visually interesting aperitifs, with an intense, fruity flavour. Literally translated as Monk’s Head, the cheese takes its name from its appearance similar to the shaved patch on the crown of the monks’ heads at the Abbey de Bellelay where it is made.
Perhaps the most unusual cheese I have ever tasted is Yak’s milk cheese. One day a British cheesemaker, who had visited China, arrived with a small container, no bigger than a cigarette packet; inside were what looked like bent matchsticks. These turned out to be dried curd. This cheese (!) was made in Mongolia where he had been invited to advise the locals on cheesemaking. It was the dairy equivalent of Beef Jerky or Biltong. Very dry, very chewy, quite salty, not a huge amount of flavour; but vaguely dairyish. An experience but not a sure-fire winner on the cheeseboard, I fear.
Dry Oloroso Sherry Pata de Gallina: Juan Garcia Jarana
The Italians will drink Lambrusco with Parmigiano but I have never found a Lambrusco which I liked; I prefer Champagne, or better still, one of the diverse styles of sherry. My favourite is a Dry Oloroso. Sipping Dry Oloroso and nibbling Parmigiano in front of a log fire on Christmas morning (or any other morning!) gives a great sense of all being well with the world. A better mid-morning snack is hard to find.
The Cheesemonger's Tales Page 7