Tome des Bauges

Appearance & taste

Tome des Bauges is a cylinder 18 to 20 cm in diameter and 3 to 5 cm high that weighs 1.1 to 1.4 kg after ripening. The rind, 2 to 3 mm thick, is called “tourmentée”: it is uneven and has bumps. It is grey, and yellow to brown “flowers” can form on it naturally. The paste is slightly firm to mouldable and supple, ivory yellow and may have small holes. The cheese contains at least 45 % fat in dry matter.

Each cheese carries its own label with the name. Cheese sold in portions must have rind on all three sides of the piece. The addition “Fromage fermier” (farmhouse cheese) is permitted under certain conditions.

Production

The milk comes from cows of the Abondance, Tarine and Montbéliarde breeds, with Abondance and Tarine making up at least half of the herd; on average a cow gives at most 5,500 kg of milk a year. In summer the cows graze for at least 120 days, in winter they eat hay. Silage and other fermented feed are prohibited, and dry feed from outside the area may make up at most 30 % of annual requirements. The milk comes from within a radius of at most 15 km around the cheese dairy.

Raw milk is used and made into cheese once a day; matured milk may be partly skimmed. Because the milk has a rather high pH value, the cheesemakers let it sour slowly. Apart from salt, rennet and lactic acid bacteria, no additions are allowed. Renneting takes place at 32 to 35 °C in open copper vats holding at most 3,000 litres. The curd is cut to the size of maize grains and heated to 35 to 40 °C, filled into moulds by hand or by gravity and pressed by stacking for at least seven hours, being turned at least four times. Salting is done by hand with dry salt, in industrial plants also in a brine bath. The cheese then ripens for at least five weeks from renneting. Milk production, making and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The cheese is named after the Massif des Bauges in the Alps, a limestone massif with an enclosed valley surrounded by high rock walls. The landscape is shaped by pastures and alpine meadows, and the mountain climate brings plenty of rain all year and very cold winters. According to the specification, climate and rock give the area great fodder potential and a diverse flora.

“Tome” or “Tomme” has been documented in the region for several centuries. The cheese is made by traditional methods in cooperative cheese dairies and on alpine pastures.