Bleu de Termignon

The cheese

High up in the Haute-Maurienne, within the Vanoise National Park, Bleu de Termignon is one of the last truly confidential cheeses of France — made each summer above two thousand metres of altitude by just four or five families, who produce a few hundred wheels from their alpine pastures between June and September. Without AOP or IGP, its singularity lies in a rare detail: the blue veining is natural, not inoculated. No Penicillium is added; the blue develops spontaneously, slowly, from the microbial flora of the alpine meadows where Tarentaise and Abondance graze. The seven-to-ten-kilo wheel comes from an ancestral mix of two curds at different stages, then hand-pierced to aerate the paste and let the natural moulds settle during four to five months of ageing. On the palate, complex herbaceous flavours no other blue can match. Enjoy sparingly, on sourdough bread with a Savoie Mondeuse.