Gruyère

Appearance & taste

Gruyère comes as a large wheel with a slightly convex side, 53 to 63 cm in diameter and 13 to 16 cm high. The brushed rind is firm and grainy and golden yellow to brown. The firm paste is ivory to pale yellow and must have holes the size of a pea to a cherry. The cheese contains 47 to 52 % fat in dry matter, at least 62 % dry matter and 0.6 to 1.7 g of salt per 100 g.

The aroma and flavour come mainly from propionic fermentation during ripening; it also forms the holes. According to the specification, Gruyère is the only cheese with a pressed, cooked paste and a geographical indication that must have small holes.

Each wheel is given a band around its side before it leaves the ripening cellar. Gruyère is also sold in pieces or grated; no additives, anti-caking agents or release agents may be added to grated cheese.

Production

The milk comes only from cows of the local breeds Abondance, Tarentaise, Montbéliarde, Vosgienne and Simmental française. They eat mainly grass and hay and are out on pasture for at least 150 days a year; keeping them indoors all year is prohibited. At least 80 % of the roughage comes from the area, and supplementary feed is limited to 1,800 kg per cow per year. Silage and other fermented feed are prohibited all year round so that fermentation in the cheese succeeds.

No more than six hours may pass between collecting the milk from the producer and its arrival at the cheese dairy. The cheesemaker adds natural milk ferments obtained from whey and/or natural rennet from the previous day’s whey and works in an open copper vat that holds at most the milk for 14 wheels.

The fresh wheels then go to the affineurs. They rub the cheeses with the morge, a mixture of local microflora, salt and water, and ripen them partly in warm cellars so that the holes form. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the defined area.

Origin & history

The area covers mountains and limestone plateaus in eastern France with thin soils, a continental climate and more than 900 mm of rain a year, spread over all seasons. This favours natural meadows with a great diversity of plants. The ripening cellars mostly lie in the valleys or on the plain along old trade routes, which were also convenient for transporting salt from the Jura.

According to the specification, Gruyère is one of the oldest French cheeses and has been made for centuries in the border region with Switzerland. The name is said to go back to the “Officiers gruyers”, forestry officials who levied dues on the use of the forests. Since the end of the 19th century the area has matched the network of cheese dairies: the milk producers are organised in cooperatives, own their cheese dairy, the “fruitière”, and employ the master cheesemaker. Large wheels made the summer milk keep for the whole winter.