Past Newsletters

March 2008

Aussie Cheese – A Unique Treat

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 that have been featured recently have been European cheeses. Rightly so since many of the world's finest cheeses are made in England, France and other countries in Europe. This month, you will still receive excellent cheeses from Europe – France in particular – but you are 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 lasting remnants of the land bridge that at one time linked the island of Tasmania to the Australian mainland. King Island is an exceptionally picturesque spot on a fine day, but ferocious westerly winds which blow directly down the 40°S Longitude can, and do, create treacherous seas. These winds came to be known as the Roaring 40's, and are 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 the night.

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 helping of kelp washed up after heavy storms. And so, King Island cows have become renowned for producing the sweetest, creamiest, purest milk, leading to an array of fine dairy products and award-winning cheeses, many of which are acclaimed throughout Australia, and 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 which gives it 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, Roaring 40's Blue 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 typically a fan of blue cheese, this one usually wins people over with its buttery smooth, nutty flavor. Allow Roaring 40's to fully come to room temperature - enjoy the creamy texture with a fresh baguette, red grapes, figs and walnuts. Enjoy!
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, both red and white. Check it out at www.winemonthclub.com.

Morbier

Morbier Du Livradois comes to us in a 14-pound wheel. We cut and wrap it in special papers to preserve the flavor and allow the cheese to breathe, which is very important for storing most cheeses. This European delight is made from raw cow's milk from the Savoie region in France, adding depth to the flavor and giving it a sweet taste and the smell of fresh hay. Aptly named (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, the cheesemakers used left over curd from Comte production, Morbier was made strictly for the cheesemakers consumption. The look of this cheese is quite distinctive with a horizontal gray-black line running through the middle of it. 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.

The Auvergne, where both Morbier and Cantal originated, lies in the heart of the Massif Central, a mountain range with a chain of long extinct volcanoes, or "Puy." The Allier is rich farm country with gentle 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, 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 really does flavor the milk they produce, and the resulting cheeses. A charming place to visit, there are country fetes held from spring until late autumn to celebrate the harvest and the movement of the herds to and from their mountain pastures.

Tasting Notes: Morbier has a complex 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 when it comes to cheese platters. It is often used on sandwiches. Morbier melts well and is excellent on salads.

Cantal: One of the World's Oldest Cheeses

One of the oldest of the French cheeses, Cantal was reportedly enjoyed over 2000 years ago in ancient Rome, as mentioned in writings of Plinius the Elder. The Roman cheese markets included many fine examples coming from the French Jura and the Central Massif areas due to their effective transportation network. 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. The Livradois Mounts plunge down to the fertile plains of the Limagnes, and through wet, jonquil-carpeted valleys open to panoramas of the Puy and the Forez mountain ranges. As you might imagine this 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 - burons (old farm buildings where cheese was made), the "four banal" (communal baking ovens), water mills, "cow shoeing" sheds, etc. 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: Named for the mountains, this cheese is often referred to as a "French cheddar," although the recipes for Cantal and Cheddar are very different, and so are the resulting textures. When young, it 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, best served with Madiran.

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! 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.