2 198metres · summit pasture460metres · valley floor

The system that turns a slope into cheese

Between the valley floor at Faverges and the summit pasture below the Pointe de la Sambuy, three protected designations set out what a herd may eat, how long it must graze, how cold the cellar must be and what the board is made of. This is that record, section by section.

Cattle grazing on a steep green summer pasture high on a mountainside with a deep valley far below — Eight or nine weeks is the whole productive season at this altitude. The herd, the buildings and the dairy all exist to fit inside it.pays-de-faverges.com picture library

The Alpage

Working altitude

The alpage is high pasture used only in summer, and the whole calendar of the valley is organised around the weeks it can carry animals.

An alpage is not a field. It is a defined parcel of mountain land, often held by a commune rather than a farmer, whose productive season may last as little as eight or nine weeks — and the whole calendar of the valley below is organised around it.

Read the entry →

Pooled milk

One farm's milk was never enough for one wheel, so the neighbours pooled it — which made the dairy a shared institution rather than a business.

The Fruitière

Reblochon de Savoie

The cheese exists because of a tax: tenants under-milked in front of the landlord's agent and made cheese afterwards from the richer second milking.

The Designations

Emmorgeage

Washing and rubbing the rind at intervals encourages one population of organisms and discourages another.

The Cellar

1step

Every entry is one step between the pasture and the cellar.

Three designations, one system

Each record names the breeds it will accept, the number of days the herd must graze, and the time the wheel must spend on a board before it may be sold. The differences between them are not stylistic.

Cross-section of a wedge of reblochon showing its rind and pale, dense interior

Reblochon de Savoie

15days minimum affinage

2milkings a day — the second one is the cheese

Wheel: Soft, washed rind; roughly 14 cm across and 450–550 g
Milk: Raw, from the second milking
Mark: Green casein disc, farmhouse; red disc, dairy

Rows of large round cheeses ageing on wooden boards in a cool stone cellar

Abondance

100days minimum affinage

150grazing days minimum a year

Wheel: Pressed, half-cooked; 7–8 cm high, 6–12 kg, concave heel
Milk: Raw and whole, rennet-set in a copper vat
Mark: Elliptical green plate, farmhouse; square red, dairy

Tome des Bauges

5weeks minimum affinage

120grazing days minimum a year

Wheel: Pressed in stacks of three or four, 7 h minimum, 4 turnings
Milk: Raw; hay at least four fifths from the massif
Mark: A rind the record calls tourmentée

Breed, milk and cellar conditions for all three, side by side: The Designations.

Two rooms the milk passes through

Between the udder and the cellar the milk is handled in exactly two places, and both of them are built around a vat.

A low stone mountain farm building with a broad slate roof standing alone on high pasture — The chalet d’alpage: byre at one end, dairy room in the middle, a hearth and a sleeping platform at the other. One herd, one vat, one person.pays-de-faverges.com picture library

A large copper vat of curd in a dairy with an adult worker cutting it with a wire harp — The fruitière: one vat filled by several farms, because no single herd could fill it alone. The finished wheels rotated back to the members in turn.pays-de-faverges.com picture library

Working altitudes

2 217metres

Pointe d’Arcalod, the summit of the Massif des Bauges — École, Savoie

2 198metres

Pointe de la Sambuy, the high point of Faverges-Seythenex

1 732metres

Col d’Orgeval, above the Vallon de Saint-Ruph

460metres

The valley floor at Faverges, where the milk is collected

Communes and massifs

Haute-Savoie and Savoie, in eastern France: the French Alps immediately south of Lake Geneva and the Swiss border, about forty kilometres from Italy. Annecy is the nearest city; Faverges sits at the head of its lake.

↑ Switzerland · Geneva Italy → ← France · Lyon ← Grenoble Haute-Savoie Savoie

The two French departments the designations are drawn on. The box is the ground enlarged alongside.

5.8°E6.0°E6.2°E6.4°E6.6°E45.6°N45.8°N46.0°N Haute-Savoie Savoie Faverges ChevalineSeythenexThones BaugesAnnecy 10 km N

The valley of Faverges sits at the top of the Bauges, between the Lac d’Annecy basin and the Tarentaise. The grey line through the middle is the boundary between the two departments; Thônes, north of it, is where Reblochon originates.

The shaded ground is Haute-Savoie and Savoie. Outside the outline: Switzerland to the north, Italy to the east, the rest of France to the west.
Each pin is a place named somewhere in this record. The linked ones open the entry that names them.