Le Sauvaget

Let's talk about mold.

When it comes to food, mold is a major turn off. But when it comes to cheese, it has a purpose. Mold* imparts flavor and gives cheese its texture, its tang, its aroma and its ability to ooze across a plate, among other things.

Roquefort is the example that immediately springs to mind. Mold, specifically the penicillium roqueforti strain that makes up those delicious veins of blue, is what gives Roquefort its raison d'être.

On that note, I would like to introduce you to a delightful little moldy goat's cheese from the Deux-Sèvres department called le Sauvaget.



There is the obvious appearance of a bluish-gray mold on its surface, which is a wonderful thing. This mold means flavor!
Le Sauvaget is earthy, grassy, somewhat sour, salty and lactic. Its texture is dense, crumbly and coats your mouth with rich, fromage de chèvre deliciousness.
Goat cheese season is upon us, so enjoy this one while you can!

A crisp, mineral white wine such as a Sancerre would be a wonderful match with this cheese.

*If it's a soft cheese like brocciu or ricotta and you discover that a fuzzy alien has dropped in and set up home among those soft, white curds, then I would definitely recommend tossing it in the trash. Those are not the molds you want to know!



Pin It

Normandy Fromage de Chèvre?

It's no secret that Normandy is considered the dairy heartland of France. Everywhere you look there are pastures filled with cows, either quietly grazing, chewing their cud or watching the traffic roll by.

On average the French eat 24 kilos of cheese a year and by the time we celebrate our one year anniversary in Normandy, I wouldn't be surprised if we have surpassed that figure. The abundance of Camembert producers alone has me excited!
I plan to try them all.

Not to mention the fact that it is now considered a mini crisis in our house when we're running low on Normandy salt butter.

Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Clacbitou

I managed to visit six cheese shops in six days while in Paris, a personal best.
I was in cheese heaven.  My friends were in cheese hell.

We would walk into a Fromagerie and within one minute of breathing in the aroma of ripening cheese their faces would kind of twist up and this look of dismay would appear, then they would make their apologies and quickly retreat.  There was always a café nearby where they could sit and have a coffee, so they were pretty patient with me.
(Funny, because I find the aroma of ripening cheese a wonderful thing.  Go figure.)

Last year I was told about a little Fromagerie in the 11th called Autour du Fromage, which happened to be just down the road from where we were staying.  On our first day I casually led the group in its direction under the assurance that we were heading toward the Marais - which we were, I just had a couple of stops to make along the way.  I did a lot of our navigating around the city, so figured that working my cheese hunting agenda into our outings every so often wasn't too unreasonable.

Inside I found Clacbitou, a férmier goat cheese from Burgundy.  I took it back to the apartment and did a solo tasting as none of my cheeseophobe friends would get near it.  Oh well, more for me!
Clacbitou has a slight aroma of hay and earth, a very fine, chalky texture and a dense, chewy mouthfeel.  The flavors are mildly goaty, salty and mushroomy, with hints of nuts and slightly tangy.
All around a good cheese, just not the best fromage de chèvre I've ever had.  I prefer its Bourgogne cousin, Charolais, which has a similar texture but a more balanced, sweeter flavor.  It was also reminiscent of Chabichou du Poitou, which I also prefer.

White wines such as Sancerre or a Bourgogne aligoté are good pairings.


The woman at Autour du Fromage was chatty and very helpful, so if you're in Paris and are looking for a great little Fromagerie, please check this place out.

Autour du Fromage
120 Rue de Charonne
75011 Paris
01 43 71 58 48
. Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Cabécou de l'Aveyron

Somehow this one slipped under the radar.

Back in April, my friend Betty (of La France Profonde) came for the weekend toting a rather large gift basket that was stuffed with all sorts of delicious goodies from the Aveyron.
Best of all were the six kinds of cheese tucked inside!
We enjoyed Le Petit Campredon and Tomme d'Estaing, savored the huge wedge of Roquefort and gave l'Ecir en Aubrac another try. (It was better the second time around)

So, how on earth did I forget to include Cabécou de l'Aveyron in a weekly Fête du Fromage?


Oh well. Better late than never.


Simple and straightforward, this unpasteurized, farm produced fromage de chèvre has fresh, grassy and milky flavors and a delicious soft, oozing texture. This is a young piece, less than two weeks old, so the flavor was quite mild.
As Cabécou matures, a layer of blue mold develops on its thin rind, the cheese dries out and the flavor becomes more intense and goaty.

The word Cabécou means "small goat" in Occitan, a thousand year old Romance language that is still spoken in the south of France.
Because of its tiny size, each little wheel is a perfect, one-person portion. You can share if you want to, however. I did.
But I can't promise to next time!

A glass of dry white wine such as Sancerre or a hearty red such as a Côteaux du Languedoc would be good wine pairings with Cabécou de l'Aveyron. Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Le Saint-Christophe

Heavily perfumed with the scent of woody herbs and goat-filled barnyards, Le Saint-Christophe is not for the faint of heart!

This is a bold cheese.

It looks innocent enough - a nice, soft white rind wrapped around a creamy, melting interior - mais attention, looks can be deceiving! One taste and your senses are hit with a blast of tantalizing, spicy and seductive flavors.
I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least.

If you love assertive, intensely flavored goat's cheese, this is one that you must try.


Le Saint-Christophe is an unpasteurized goat's milk cheese, produced and matured on a farm near the small town of St-Christophe Vallon, in the Aveyron.

A glass of crisp Sauvignon Blanc or Sancerre would be a good match to this cheese's robust flavors.

Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - La Courounne Lochoise

The area surrounding the medieval city of Loches in the southern Loire valley is home to the farmers who make this little ash covered fromage de chèvre, La Couronne Lochiose.

Its name, la Couronne, meaning the crown, springs from its distinctive ring shape, and Lochoise means simply that it comes from the area around Loches.


This has to be one of the best unpasteurized goat cheeses that I've tasted thus far.

It has a mild "goatiness" and is somewhat salty and mildly acidic. There is a welcome whisper of a fresh, green grass flavor and its texture is ultra rich and creamy. It literally melts in your mouth.
Quite simply - fabulous!

Wines from the Loire pair best with La Couronne Lochoise. Try a white Sancerre or a reds such as Anjou or Bourgueil. Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Machecoulais

Machecoul, a small town in the watery, verdant Marais Poitevin region of the Loire-Atlantique, is home to the dairy farm of Pascal Beillevaire, Maître Fromager Affineur.

Machecoulais Cremeux is an original creation of Pascal Beillevaire's, named for his home town.

M. Beillevaire works with around 200 small farmers/producers who entrust the affinage of more than 400 varieties of young fermier cheeses in his three ripening caves; one for blue cheese in the Auvergne, one in the Savoie for mountain cheeses and one at his large dairy just a few kilometers from his family’s farm for the soft-ripened varieties.
The cheeses and other dairy products such as fresh milk, butter, cream, yogurt and crème fraîche are then sold at his chain of shops around France and at locations around Europe and in the U.S.


I purchased this little brick at one of his shops in Paris last week and we tasted it with some sweet muscat grapes from our village and rustic seed bread from la boulangerie Eric Kayser.

The unpasteurized cow's milk used to make Machecoulais is gently perfumed by the sweet grasses in the Loire. The floral, grassy flavor comes through along with earth and mushrooms. It was slightly sour and lactic, not too salty, and the texture was rich and creamy.
I thought it was absolutely perfect for smearing on a chunk of rustic bread.

Some white wine from the Loire, perhaps some Vouvray or Sancerre, would be a nice wine pairing with this cheese.


More articles about Pascal Beillevaire.
SF Gate
Formaggio Kitchen Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Brie de Melun

Brie de Melun is not your average Brie.

It achieved AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) status in 1980 along with Brie de Meaux and is produced in the same area as Brie de Meaux, about 50 kilometers outside of Paris in the Île-de-France region, but that is where the similarities end.

Brie de Meaux is soft, Brie de Melun is robust.
Brie de Meaux is refined, Brie de Melun is lusty.
Brie de Meaux is perfumed, Brie de Melun is heady.
If Brie de Meaux were Jackie O, then Brie de Melun would be Marilyn Monroe.

The difference in flavor has to do with the method of production. Whereas Brie de Meaux's production uses rennet to achieve coagulation in a mere 30 minutes, Brie de Melun relies on lactic fermentation, which takes at least 18 hours.
Seven to eight weeks of affinage* produce a dense, pale yellow colored interior and a bloomy, white rind that is brushed with reddish-brown streaks. The flavors are fruity, salty, slightly sour and rustic. I also tasted hints of mushroom and hazelnuts.

Brie de Melun is absolutely fantastic!



Serve with red wine such as Sancerre, Bourgogne or Gaillac.



* the process of maturing and ripening cheese




Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Margalet

A strange thing happened at my favorite Fromagerie in Béziers last week...
Either the woman behind the counter hadn't properly educated herself about her products or I was blatantly lied to.

This Camembert-like sheep's milk cheese, nestled in a little wooden box, caught my eye. The name printed on the box was Margalet. Never heard of it.
I posed a couple of basic questions; what kind of milk is it made from? pasteurized or unpasteurized? fermier, artisanal or industriel?

I was told that it is unpasteurized, fermier brebis. Wonderful, I thought, and bought a piece.

Well, it isn't.
Not unpasteurized. Not fermier.
Rather, industriel, pasteurized cheese that is a recent creation from Papillon, the producers of Roquefort in the Aveyron.
However it is brebis, so she got that right. Thankfully.



I have to say that I felt rather misled.
Luckily the cheese's gorgeous flavor made up for the Fromagère's mistake/deception.

Margalet has a very earthy aroma and a smooth, chewy and supple texture. The thin, bloomy rind is completely edible and underneath is a cheese with a deep mushroom flavor and a soft, lingering aftertaste. It was a real pleasure!

Enjoy a glass of Sancerre or a Costières de Nîmes with Margalet. Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Brebis Frais and le Bouchon de Chèvre

We tasted a soft, earthy Fromage de Brebis Frais and a deceptively strong Bouchon de Chèvre this week.


The Brebis Frais comes from a sheep farm in the Corbières whose cheese we've tasted before. In January we tried their sublime Brebis des Corbières, so I was excited to try another cheese from their farm.
This cheese was frais, meaning fresh, thus the flavor was mild. At first bite it was very soft, then as the flavor developed it became tangy and sweet. We loved it! It was a dewy, dense little disk that had a grassy, fresh aroma.
An all around very friendly cheese.

Wine from the same area, the Corbières, would pair well with this cheese.



This flavorful little goat cheese is named for the object it resembles, a wine cork - a bouchon. (which can also mean a cap, a plug or a traffic jam - go figure)
Le Bouchon de Chèvre was commonly referred to as le Bouchon de Sancerre, until it became clear that people were confusing it with an actual Sancerre wine cork, so the cheese's name was changed to le Bouchon de Chèvre. It hails from the region around the town of Sancerre, in the gorgeous Loire Valley.

To achieve its small cylindrical shape, the curds are wrapped in linen and placed into little cork shaped molds to age for at least seven days. It had a smooth texture that was oozing a bit around a blooming, white crust and had a heady aroma. It made for a very smelly kitchen! The flavor was difficult to describe: hints of sourness that became spicy on the tongue and an undertone of wine or marc. This was an excellent cheese!

Avoid red wine, instead have a glass of Sancerre wine with le Bouchon.

blooming exterior

. Pin It

La Fête du Fromage Fermière

Two férmier cheeses were tasted this week, one sheep's milk, Le Brebis du Berry - "Le Palais," and one goat's milk, Le Balnot.

Le Brebis du Berry is a little. unpasteurized ewe's milk cheese from the Berry region of central France, an area that is renowned for it's goat cheeses such as Selles-sur-Cher and Crottin de Chavignol. Fromage de brebis is not as common, so I was happy to try it. It had a creamy, soft texture with a lovely, sweet and grassy flavor and a mild, earthy aroma. We thought it was sublime!

Le Brebis du Berry was produced at la Ferme des Bruyères.

Pair with a glass of fruity Beaujolais or some Chardonnay.



Le Balnot, a fromage de chèvre férmier, comes from the small town of Ferrals-les-Corbières in the Corbières region. Just down the road from our village, as a matter of fact... The farm where it is produced is called the Chèverie La Balnautière.

This cheese had a tangy, somewhat mild, citrus-like flavor and a semi-firm, creamy texture. It was delicious, but I must say we preferred the brebis. I think a glass of white Sancerre would be perfect with this chèvre.


Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Comté and Ossau-Iraty

They may look similar, but these two cheeses, Comté and Ossau-Iraty, produced on opposite sides of France, are quite different.



Comté, on the right, is one of France's most popular cheeses. After production in cooperatives, called fruitières, in the villages of the Franche-Comté region of eastern France, each cheese must pass strict quality tests before being allowed into the marketplace. It takes the daily production of 30 cows to make one 80 pound (35 kilo) wheel of Comté.

It's flavor is sweet and caramelized with a slightly nutty and salty tang, and it melts in your mouth. In the kitchen, this is an extremely versatile cheese. It is delicious cut into cubes and added to salads, eaten with fruit, melted in a sandwich or used to make fondue.
Really wonderful!
A glass of fruity Beaujolais or white Sancerre pair nicely with Comté.


Ossau-Iraty, on the left, is an unpasteurized ewe's milk cheese that is produced in two areas of the Pyrénées in southwestern France: Ossau Valley in the Béarn and the hills of Iraty in the Basque country. Historians maintain that this cheese has been produced for more than a thousand years.

It has a soft, supple texture with a mild, nutty flavor that we both loved. I wasn't expecting much from Ossau-Iraty, but it is scrumptious!
Savor a cold glass of Jurançon or a red Madiran with this cheese. Pin It

La Fête du Fromage - Valençay and Cantal Entre-Deux

I need to make a list.

While standing at the fromagerie counter last week and surveying the vast array of cheeses on offer I spent an astonishing amount of time thinking to myself, "have I tasted that one? I don't remember...how about that one?
Damn, I need to make a list!"
The poor woman behind the counter.

After much consideration (and reflection on the fact that I must have short term memory loss) two very different looking and tasting cheeses were chosen for this week's Fête du Fromage.

Cantal entre-deux and Valençay

Cantal entre-deux is one of the five AOC granted cheeses that come from the mountainous Auvergne region of central France. The "entre-deux" means "between" as there are three ages of Cantal; young, entre-deux and vieux. Young, mild Cantal is aged for 1-2 months, entre-deux is aged for 3-6 months and the strongest tasting, vieux more than 6 months. Cantal is considered one of the oldest cheeses, having been mentioned by Pliny the Elder around 2000 years ago. It is made from unpasteurized cow's milk and has a sweet, fruity flavor and creamy, smooth texture. It is extremely enjoyable, not too strong, but not too mild either.
Fruity, red wines such as Gaillac are a good match.

Valençay is another fetching little pyramid shaped cheese with a salted, ash covered, bumpy rind. Made in the Loire Valley from raw goat's milk, it was granted AOC status quite recently, in 1998. Its flavor was tangy, mild and nutty with subtle hints of citrus and the texture was supple and smooth. All around delicious!
Drink a white Valençay or Sancerre or a light red wine with this one.


Pin It