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The Glories of Comté

As early as the thirteenth century, there are references to an exceptional French cheese: Comté.

The name is French for ‘country’ and it is named after the Franche-Comté region in eastern France where the rugged Jura Mountains dominate the landscape.

In those early days, the wheels of cheese were made by shepherds who spent their summers in their remote huts, high up in the Jura massif where the cows grazed on tender green grass and alpine flowers. The wheels of cheese are very large: roughly 3’ across and 5 inches tall, and weighing about 80 pounds each. It takes about 160 gallons of milk (about 30 cows’ milk from one day) to make each wheel of cheese. This large size developed for very pragmatic reasons: first, it lends itself to a longer aging process than smaller wheels, which in turn makes a cheese that will continue to be edible for a very long period; and second, it is easier to transport a few large wheels down the steep mountainsides than it would be to move many smaller ones (if one’s cart rolled over, all the little wheels could go rolling everywhere and many would be lost, whereas the large wheels are much less likely to skitter away). When summer ended so did the production of Comté; fall and winter milk was used to make other cheeses.

Today, Comté is one of France’s most widely consumed cheese – nearly 40,000 tons are eaten each year. But in spite of this tremendous demand, it is produced under strict AOC (Appellation d’origine contrôlée) guidelines by small producers. These rules insure that any cheese that carries the name Comté will be made in the traditional way and that the process will not be “improved” in the name of efficiency. The cheese can only be made within the traditional region, using raw milk from Montbéliard cows. Each cow must have at least a hectare (about 2 ½ acres) of grazing and only be fed fresh, natural feed, with no silage (stored, fermented hay and grass). Other rules restrict when rennet is added, how the milk is warmed, when salt is added, etc. Today, about 200 small farms and fruitières produce the wheels of cheese. Their wheels are aged together in a few enormous caves. There the wheels are laid out on spruce boards and carefully aged from four to eighteen months.

At Foster & Dobbs, we work with Daphne Zepos at Essex Street Cheese Company to bring you truly exceptional Comté. Daphne and her Essex Street partner, Jason Hinds, work with Claude Querry, the head affineur* at the Fort Saint Antoine cave. Jason and Daphne select a small group of wheels (usually from only one or two farms, and almost exclusively made from May to October when the cows are still in pasture) that will be matured especially for Essex. Jason travels to France every six weeks to sample and select new wheels and Daphne visits the caves every three months to taste the wheels as they develop and calibrate their selection for the American market. When she determines that a wheel is at its peak, she has it shipped to the States and on to shops like Foster & Dobbs.

Essex Street Comté has a very deep, complex and long lasting flavor. It is always creamy and buttery with hazelnut notes. While some mountain cheese flavors hit with a bang and then quickly subside, Comté is more subtle, layered, with a long finish. The aroma has roasted notes such as peanut, cocoa, butter, citrus, and fruit.

* - Affinage is the term for carefully nurtured cheese maturation.