From the Gruyere family, Comté cheese is a raw milk cheese made from partially skimmed cow's milk with a soft and creamy paste.
Comté cheese is made in an artisanal way, from raw milk of cows of the French Montbéliarde or Simmentale breed. The cows are fed exclusively on grass and hay.
Fermented products are forbidden in the dairy herd's diet. The farming system of this Jura cheese is extensive. The rind of Comté cheese, grained on the surface, can be golden yellow to brown.
The cheese wheel is cylindrical in shape and 8 to 13 cm high; its heel is straight or slightly curved, its weight from 30 to 48 kg. The variability of the maturation period of Comté cheese means that at any time on the market it is possible to obtain Comté cheeses of different seasons.
The summer Comté cheeses have more diversified and fruity aromas, while the winter Comté cheeses (light-colored) are characterized by more pronounced "hazelnut", vegetable or roasted nuances.
Choosing a Comté cheese:
It is not possible to enclose in a few words this incredible diversity of taste that characterizes Comté. Some are indeed more salty than others, some are very sweet, very milky, others very rich in roasted aromas, but never a single word will be able to restore the subtlety of each aromatic bouquet.
It is always a pity to hear Comté cheese presented through its eternal qualifiers (fruity, salty, sweet) but perhaps it is necessary to admit that certain emotions, certain experiences are lived much more than told.
Summer Comté or winter Comté?
The first one can be recognized by its more intense yellow paste than the second one, more ivory. Summer Comté cheese comes from the milk of cows feeding on meadows.
Fresh grass is rich in carotene, and because Comté is one of the few cheeses that does not contain coloring agents, it restores this original difference. Summer Comté is often attributed a greater organoleptic richness. But the season is not everything. You have to breathe in the scent of the hay to understand the finesse of the aromas that a winter Comté cheese can give you.
Each wheel of Comté cheese is rated out of 20 points. This notation sanctions the taste but also the physical aspect of the cheese. Cheese wheels that obtain a score higher than 15 points receive a green band.
Wheels that score between 12 and 15 points receive a brown stripe, and it is important to note that this brown stripe can be used to penalize a slight defect in the appearance of an otherwise excellent cheese. Wheels that do not reach a score of 12 are downgraded.
Green or brown, both are authentic Comté cheese with a minimum age of 4 months. The color of the band has no relation to the age of the cheese nor to the type of taste. An open Comté cheese is a Comté cheese with eyes in the paste.
These bubbles produced by the fermentation process are usually the size of a small cherry. Comté cheese is not very open
Comté cheese is covered with a crust that protects the paste during the maturing process. It tells the story of its making.
Shaped by the perforations of the mold used by the cheesemaker, the cheese wheel presents from the first day a regularly grained surface.
The care taken during the maturing process will modify this relief.
Its color can vary from golden yellow to brown depending on the atmosphere in the cellar. Some experts are able to recognize the maturing place of a Comté cheese simply by examining its rind.
Made without the addition of coloring agents, Comté cheese reflects the season in which it was made through the color of its paste, which corresponds to a "winter Comté".
