Petit Reblochon

TAST­ING NOTES FROM THE CURATOR

The Reblo­chon is an award-win­ning cheese, hav­ing earned the Bronze medal at the 2014 World Cheese Awards.

Matured for at least four to eight weeks, it has an edi­ble washed rind in a light beige col­or, and exudes an her­by, earthy aro­ma. Inside, its tex­ture is com­pact, and smooth and sup­ple. Its mild nut­ty fla­vor is deli­cious and del­i­cate, giv­ing off fruity notes.

PAIR­INGS AND PREPARATION

Like many alpine cheeses, the Reblo­chon is excel­lent on its own or as part of a cheese plat­ter. Serve it with fresh, crusty bread and some nuts or dried fruit. Pair with a Savoie wine for max­i­mum enjoyment.

Make sure to serve the cheese at room tem­per­a­ture to ful­ly bring out its bril­liance. Take it out of the refrig­er­a­tor at least two hours before serv­ing. But to tru­ly make it shine, we sug­gest try­ing the Reblo­chon as a tar­ti­flette, a mouth-water­ing tra­di­tion­al win­ter dish, well-loved in the Alps. It’s per­fect for cold­er days, and easy to make.

• Boil some pota­toes in salt­ed water; let cool before peel­ing and slicing.
• Sauté some onions and bacon on a pan, adding a splash of white wine when both are ten­der. Add salt and pep­per to taste.
• Lay­er some pota­to slices on the bot­tom of a but­tered casse­role pan/​pie plate.
• Pour the bacon-onion mix­ture, then cov­er with anoth­er lay­er of potatoes.
• Spread some crème fraiche before lay­er­ing your slices of Reblo­chon on top.
• Bake in the oven, and voila! A tar­ti­flette — a very, very good dish that will make you want to lick your emp­ty plate.

CLEVER ORI­GINS

The word Reblo­chon comes from ​“reblocher,” which means, ​“to pinch a cow’s udder again.” Dur­ing the 14^th cen­tu­ry, landown­ers would tax farm­ers based on the amount of milk their cows pro­duced. The farm­ers would then not ful­ly milk their cows, not until after their landown­er had mea­sured the yield. The milk that comes from the sec­ond half of the milk­ing ends up much rich­er, which con­tributes to the creami­ness of the Reblochon.

Storage Instructions

Cheeses (except brined ones in jars) should be stored in the crisper or the but­ter draw­er of a refrig­er­a­tor, not on the shelves them­selves. This is to help reg­u­late their tem­per­a­ture and humid­i­ty lev­els — and pre­vents the for­ma­tion of mold. Once opened, they should not be kept in their orig­i­nal pack­ag­ing. Soft cheeses with del­i­cate rinds need to breathe, so they are best placed in glass con­tain­ers lined with paper tow­els to absorb extra mois­ture. Leave the lid open a tiny bit for air to cir­cu­late and don’t for­get to write up a label with the date you first opened the pack­age. Your cheese will be fine for up to one month, unless oth­er­wise stat­ed in best before date stamped on the label.