Sections
Five sections, eighteen entries, in the order the milk travels: pasture, herd, dairy, designation, cellar.
Section 1
4entries
The Alpage
A working altitude, not a view.
- Working altitudeThe alpage is high pasture used only in summer, and the whole calendar of the valley is organised around the weeks it can carry animals.
- TranshumanceThe herd is walked up in early summer and back down in autumn, on foot, along routes that have not moved much.
- Chalets d'alpageThe building on the high pasture is a workplace with a byre, a dairy room and a hearth, built from what was on the slope.
- Chevaline and SeythenexTwo communes on the same massif whose pastures sit at different altitudes and so keep different calendars.
Section 2
4entries
The Herds
Which animals the rules allow.
- AbondanceA mahogany-and-white mountain breed named for its valley, admitted by the designations that matter here.
- TarineA small hardy brown breed suited to steep ground and thin summer grass.
- MontbéliardeRed-and-white, higher yielding, and admitted by all three of the designations.
- Grazing and forageThe rules limit what an animal may eat, which is how a designation ties a cheese to a specific slope.
Section 3
4entries
The Fruitière
One farm's milk was never enough.
- Pooled milkOne 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 tour de rôleMembers took the finished cheese in turn, in proportion to what they had brought, recorded in a book.
- The copper vatCopper conducts evenly and behaves predictably with the curd, which is why the material outlasted every reason to replace it.
- WheyWhat is left after the curd is the second trade under the same roof, and it has always been fed to animals rather than discarded.
Section 4
3entries
The Designations
What the protection actually specifies.
- Reblochon de SavoieThe 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.
- Tome des BaugesA grey-rinded wheel from the massif next door, with its own specification for breed and altitude.
- Plates and markingsA small casein marker pressed into the rind records where and when a wheel was made.
Section 5
3entries
The Cellar
Where time does the remaining work.
- Spruce boardsThe wood is part of the process, not the furniture: the board takes moisture from the rind and gives back a flora that the cheese needs.
- EmmorgeageWashing and rubbing the rind at intervals encourages one population of organisms and discourages another.
- Turning and timeEach wheel is turned on a schedule so it does not settle, and the schedule is most of the craft.