Past Newsletters - March 2010

Cheese From Down Under – Unique & Delicious

If you have been a Cheese of the Month Club member for more than a month or two, you know that the majority of cheeses we regularly feature are European cheeses. That’s because many of the world's finest cheeses are made in England, France and other countries in Europe. United States farmhouses have also learned from the European masters and are producing really great cheeses. This month, you’ll still receive excellent cheeses from Europe – France in particular – but you’re also in for a rare and unique treat: cheese from Australia!

Roaring 40's Blue Cheese

Roaring 40's Blue Cheese hails from King Island, located south of Melbourne at the Western end of Bass Strait. This small island in the Great Southern Ocean is one of the few remaining remnants of a land bridge that once linked the island of Tasmania to the Australian mainland. On a fine day, King Island is an exceptionally picturesque spot, but ferocious westerly winds which blow directly down 40°S Longitude can—and do—create treacherous seas. These winds came to be known as the Roaring 40's and they’re the basis for the mystique inherent in King Island's history. Hundreds of ships and thousands of souls have been lost in shipwrecks on its rocky shoreline. All around the island, you can find memorial cairns which tell about the lives of those shipwrecked, their brave rescuers, and the lighthouse keepers who worked tirelessly through many long nights.

It was these very tragedies that gave the island its unique ambiance, and literally seeded the foundation upon which the island's dairy industry now rests. During the 15th and 16th centuries, as the Roaring 40's swept their fury across the trade routes causing shipwrecks, straw mattresses from many parts of the world drifted ashore. Their seeds germinated in the rich island soils and created the lush pastures that set the King Island dairy industry apart. The dairy herds graze on these verdant, dense pastures, supplementing their rich diet occasionally with a generous helping of kelp washed up after heavy storms. And so, King Island cows have become renowned for producing the sweetest, creamiest, purest milk—the basis of an array of fine dairy products and award-winning cheeses. King Island dairy products have long been acclaimed throughout Australia and they’re rapidly building extraordinary reputations in the international marketplace.

Unlike typical French blue cheeses (e.g., Roquefort) made from ewe's milk, Roaring 40's Blue is made entirely from cow's milk. The result is a milder taste. Roaring 40's is a full-bodied blue with a honeyed, slightly nutty quality and great aftertaste. It is a rindless cheese, matured in wax, which helps it retain moisture and creates a smooth and creamy texture. A Roquefort style mold is used to create this singular and exciting cheese style.

Roaring 40's Blue is a choice pick for connoisseurs with a penchant for sweet delights. Its flavor is greatly enhanced by pristine natural resources, unscathed by pollution and human encroachment. These advantages, along with the year round grazing season, complement traditional King Island cheesemaking recipes to create this famous, nontraditional Blue. Roaring 40's Blue is recognized by the most prestigious dairy and agricultural institutions in Australia. In 2002, it won "Champion Cheese" at the New York Fancy Food Fair, which is regarded as the most distinguished fair in the USA, attracting the finest quality products worldwide.

Tasting Notes: Even if you're not a fan of blue cheese, with its buttery smooth, nutty flavor, Roaring 40’s may well win you over. It usually does. Allow the cheese to fully come to room temperature and enjoy its creamy texture with a fresh baguette, red grapes, figs and/or walnuts. Try Roaring 40's Blue with one of our wines through The International Wine of the Month Club, which offers excellent domestic and international wines—including some red and white from Australia. Check it out at www.winemonthclub.com.

Morbier – Cheese with a Dash of Ash!

Morbier Du Livradois comes to us in a 14-pound wheel from the Morbier region of France. We cut and wrap it in special paper to preserve the flavor and allow the cheese to breathe, which is very important for storing most cheeses. Don’t be put off by the strong aroma that greets you because it is a surprisingly mild cheese made from raw cow's milk, which adds depth to the flavor and imparts a sweet taste. Morbier is aptly named because the word means "small market town." Morbier was originally made by cheesemakers who lived in the village of Morez in the Jura Mountains of France. Situated in a deep valley a few miles from the Swiss border, Morez is now surrounded by ski resorts - Les Rousses, Prémanon, Morbier, Bellefontaine, etc.

About two hundred years ago when Morbier was first made it was made strictly for the cheesemakers consumption. They used left over curd from Comte production. You’ll note the look of this cheese is quite distinctive with its horizontal gray-black line running through its middle. This line is actually a mixture of edible vegetable ash. The cheesemaker would press the leftover curd from the evening's production of Comte into a round mold and cover that curd with a thin layer of ash to prevent it from drying out. The next day he pressed the leftover morning curd on top of the ash. You could tell which layer of the cheese came from the evening milking since it tastes fruitier than that from the morning milking.

Morbier is in the Auvergne region in central France. It lies in the heart of the Massif Central, a mountain range with a chain of long extinct volcanoes—the last eruption was over 6,000 years ago. The province consists of rich farm country with rolling hills and huge forests. The landscape of the Puy-de-Dome and Cantal highlands changes into sweeping glacier valleys, lakes, waterfalls and wide plateaus. There you will find unspoiled medieval towns and mountain villages. And in the wilds of the Livradois, rest remote stone and slate roofed jasseries, burons, or actives – ancient summer farmhouses – on the plateaus.

Much of the flora and fauna common in the wilder parts of France are not found in other parts of Europe. You will see many varieties of wild orchids (e.g., the elderflower, pyramidal, and marsh), the spring anemone, wild pansies and narcissi, maiden pinks, and the great yellow gentian. Clover, all sorts of wild-flowers, and wild onions are some of plants the cows feast on, and what a cow eats flavors the milk they produce and the resulting cheeses. There are country fête held from spring until late autumn to celebrate the harvest and the movement of the herds to and from their mountain pastures. Need we say it’s a charming place to visit?

Tasting Notes: Contrary to its smell, Morbier has a mild taste and leaves a wonderful, nutty aftertaste. Its flavor is complex and fruity flavor with a slight zing. The ivory-yellow pâte is often described as supple, springy, and silky when touched, yet dry and sticky at the same time. Not only serving as a divide, the vegetable ash separating the cheese layers makes an aesthetic, dramatic presentation and has a complex, bold flavor. Mobier is a cheese that can steal the show on cheese platters. It is often used on sandwiches, melts well and is excellent on salads.

Cantal: A Cheese Enjoyed in Ancient Rome

Named after the Cantal Mountains in the Auvergne region of France, this French cheese is one of the oldest of European cheeses. Pliny’s Historia Naturalis, written over 2000 years ago (in the 1st Century AD) says this cheese was a favorite in ancient Rome. Due to their effective transportation network, the Roman cheese markets included many fine samples from the French Jura and Central Massif areas. The part of France called Cantal is located in the higher southern portion of the ancient province of Auvergne on the edge of the Massif Central, a symmetrical volcanic mass culminating in the 6096 foot high precipice known as the Plomb du Cantal. Sheets of solidified lava flow extend to southeast and north and many streams find their way to the Allier, Dordogne, and Truyère rivers - now sources of hydroelectric power. This beautiful region is famous for its waterfalls.

In the high country an alpine pastoral economy prevails. Roads twist through valleys, climbing up to the wooded crests, and only the farms dispersed in hamlets reveal the paleness of the granite. Everywhere there are structures that are being renovated, inviting tourists to imagine what it would have been like to live in these mountains hundreds of years ago with its burons (old farm buildings where cheese was made), communal baking ovens, water mills and "cow shoeing" sheds. And we are told you should be on the lookout for mouflon (wild sheep), roe deer, pine-martens, buzzards, and chamois (cliff goats with big horns). If you are in the right place at the right time, you may be lucky enough to see a black woodpecker! Cattle graze on aigades (mountain pastures) from May to September while the herdsmen spend their summers in low stone seasonal shelters making Cantal cheeses. It takes the milk of 30 cows to make a 110-pound wheel of cheese.

Tasting Notes: This cheese is often referred to as "French cheddar," although the recipes for Cantal and Cheddar are very different and so are the resulting textures. When young, Cantal has a mild, buttery flavor that, over time, develops into a pleasant bite, reminiscent of sharp cheddar. Cantalete Dore is a smaller version of a Cantal wheel, similar but more manageable. Under the hard gray-gold colored rind of our Cantalete wheel hides a soft, slightly sour hazelnut core. This is a cheese that becomes a great snack or even a dessert when accompanied by many fruits - apples, grapes, pears, or a bowl of mixed berries. Cantal works well when thinly shaved on sandwiches. It is also an excellent after dinner cheese.

In the Tasting Notes and Culture Corner segments of this newsletter, we give you some tips on tasting and pairing these cheese selections. The right wine with a superior cheese can be an excellent combination! Again we encourage you to check out The International Wine of the Month Club at www.winemonthclub.com.

Culture Corner
Cheese	Pronunciation	Recommended Wine/Beer
Roaring 40's Blue	(no special pronunciation)	Try an Australian Shiraz!
Morbier	MORE-bee-yay	Companion wines include light fruity reds, Arbois red or white, Pouilly sur Loire, and tangy white wines like Muscadet and Sancerre.
Cantal	kahn-TAHL	Cantal works well with light fruity red wines such as Beaujolais, Corbières, and Côtes du Rhône.

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