Next: about 10 Sept 2027
Mont d'Or season opens
The spruce-boxed winter cheese of the Jura goes on sale in September, in time for the cold months and Christmas.
Cheeses for Mont d'Or season opens
Mont d'Or, made on both sides of the Jura border, is a cheese of the cold season. It is made from the milk of cows that come down from summer pastures, wrapped in a band of spruce bark and sold in a spruce box. In France it goes on sale from about 10 September, and in Switzerland, where it is called Vacherin Mont-d'Or, from mid-September; it disappears again in spring. The custom is to bake it whole in its box, with garlic and a splash of white wine, and spoon it over potatoes. It is a favourite of the Christmas and New Year table in both countries.
The cheeses
Written by the EveryCheese desk with AI assistance. Background: "Vacherin Mont d'Or" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Comté: Myrabella, CC BY-SA 3.0, source