Rocamadour AOC

TAST­ING NOTES FROM THE CURATOR

Some­times called Cabé­cou de Roca­madour or Cabé­cou de Gra­mat, it is made from raw goat’s milk, and belongs to a fam­i­ly of goat cheeses called Cabé­cous. Roca­madour cheese comes in a small flat round shape with a nat­ur­al edi­ble rind, its inte­ri­or ten­der and silky. It takes about 12 – 15 days to mature, is com­bined with very lit­tle ren­net, and gives off fla­vors of milk and hazel­nut while young, get­ting stronger and nut­ti­er the fur­ther it is aged. The rich­ness of the goat’s milk owes itself to goats hav­ing access to abun­dant pas­ture (no more than 10 goats per hectare) in the Roca­madour area.

PAIR­INGS AND PREPARATION

Roca­madour is a soft cheese that can stand on its own, need­ing very lit­tle dress­ing. But should a crav­ing to pair it aris­es, it’s deli­cious driz­zled with a lit­tle hon­ey. While young, its but­tery, nut­ty fla­vor makes it a per­fect addi­tion to sal­ads, or on top of hot crusty bread. Com­ple­ment this pair­ing with a nice dry white wine. Cook it with mashed pota­to, and serve along­side soft lamb shank. Deli­cious! Aged for longer, and it becomes an excel­lent end­ing to a meal. Eat on its own, paired with a full-bod­ied red wine.

ALL HAIL, CHEESE!

The vil­lage of Roca­madour sits on a moun­tain cliff­side, with medieval archi­tec­ture seem­ing­ly untouched by time. But every year, around Pen­te­cost Sun­day, the vil­lage holds its Fête des Fro­mages, the largest cheese fes­ti­val in the south of France. It enjoys par­tic­i­pa­tion by 40 cheese pro­duc­ers in the area, and attend­ed by around 10,000 vis­i­tors. It begins with the Fruits de la Terre Mass, and a bless­ing of goat and sheep herds. Live music and enter­tain­ment keep the spir­its up, and accom­pa­ny the vis­i­tors in the farm­ers mar­kets where wine and cheese tast­ing (and buy­ing!) are held.

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. 

Air-flown cheeses are brought in as per demand. Fresh cheeses do not have a long shelf life as they con­tain less to no preser­v­a­tives at all. Kind­ly con­sult the best before date label indi­cat­ed on our vari­ants before order­ing. It is rec­om­mend­ed that they be con­sumed with­in 1 week upon arrival at your residence.