Mâconnais

Appearance & taste

Mâconnais has the shape of a truncated cone, similar to the bung of a barrel. After the minimum ripening of ten days it weighs 50 to 65 g, with longer ripening at least 30 g. The fine paste is homogeneous, creamy, firm, smooth and melting. The rind is mostly covered with white milk mould (Geotrichum candidum); on the young cheese it is beige to ivory, with increasing ripeness it turns bluish, and spots of blue mould may form. After drying, 100 g of cheese contain at least 45 g of dry matter.

Every cheese bears a label with the name “Mâconnais” and the addition “Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée” or “AOC”. For direct sales on the farm or at the market, a sales sign with this information is sufficient.

Production

The goats eat green fodder exclusively from the area: grazed or freshly fed grass and hay from permanent and temporary meadows. Monocultures on temporary meadows are prohibited, except for lucerne. During the grazing season, fresh grass makes up at least a third of the daily ration; at most 1.2 kg of hay and 1 kg of supplementary feed per day are added, and at most 350 kg of supplementary feed per goat a year. Fermented feed is not allowed, nor are genetically modified feed plants; growing them is prohibited on all of the farms’ land.

The full-fat milk is processed raw and curdled with little rennet; the raw milk favours inoculation with lactic acid bacteria from the whey. The cheese is made in its own mould and is not turned; this creates the cone shape, and it can only be salted on one side. According to the specification, how the curd and ripening develop depends directly on the small size and on the climate. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area extends over limestone hills between 200 and 600 m in altitude, with calcareous soils and a contrasting, mainly continental climate with oceanic and Mediterranean influences. Farming follows the altitude zones: meadows and pastures in the damp marl valleys, cereals at the foot of the slopes, vines on the stony slopes and dry grassland and woodland above 400 m or on north-facing slopes. The goats find their niche on the damp valley meadows and the dry grassland of the slopes; hedges and copses provide additional feed.

Goats were kept early on as a complement to winegrowing, mostly by the women, and secured income and food for the families. Because the women winegrowers also worked in the vineyard, they could not keep refilling the moulds and could not turn the cheeses, hence the cone shape. The cheese stayed small because the wine farms had only a few animals and poor meadows and because it made a good portion that way: eaten fresh with a little cream in a bowl or taken dried as a snack into the vineyard. Traditionally it is dried rather than ripened, in the “Chazère”, a cheese cage that hangs outdoors under the eaves to protect it from rodents and insects.

In the 19th century there were repeated attempts to banish the goats from the Mâconnais because they ate young trees and hedges; their numbers fluctuated with the crises in winegrowing. Through the trade routes of wine, the cheese became known far beyond the area; in 1885 an English work on dairy products mentions it. In the 20th century goat keeping often became a separate branch of farming, but remained essentially a farm activity.