Alpine and Swiss-type
Gruyere, Comte, Emmental, Beaufort and Appenzeller: cooked, pressed mountain wheels, some with holes.
Alpine cheeses are the big cooked and pressed wheels of the mountains of Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria and Germany. Made in summer from the milk of cows on high pasture, they were built to last the winter and to travel down to market. Gruyère, Comté, Emmental, Beaufort, Appenzeller, Fontina and Raclette share a family likeness: firm, supple paste, natural rinds and a nutty, brothy sweetness that deepens with age.
How they are made
The curd is cut into grains about the size of rice and cooked in its whey to above 50 degrees Celsius, which drives out moisture and gives a slow-ageing, elastic paste. The grains are lifted out in a cloth, packed into large moulds and pressed. The wheels then spend months in cellars, turned and rubbed with brine. A wheel of Comté weighs around 40 kilograms and Emmental often far more, while Beaufort has concave sides, the mark of the beechwood hoops that once bound it.
Where the holes come from
Emmental's large holes, or eyes, form when propionic bacteria feed on lactic acid during a warm cellar stage and give off carbon dioxide. The same bacteria add Emmental's sweet, nutty taste. In 2015, Swiss researchers at Agroscope reported that tiny particles of hay in the milk also help the eyes to form, which explained why cleaner modern milking had given cheeses with fewer holes. Gruyère and Comté are made to have few or none.
Summer pasture and winter wheels
Many Alpine cheeses come from transhumance. Herds climb to summer pastures in early summer and come down in September, and cheese made up there, such as Beaufort d'alpage or Gruyère d'alpage, is sold under its own name. Herders melt the cut face of a Raclette wheel by the fire and scrape it over potatoes, and fondue was a way to use hardened cheese and bread in winter. The flavour changes with the season: summer grass and flowers give a deeper colour and more floral notes.
Worth knowing
- Gruyère: Swiss mountain wheel, the base of fondue
- Comté: Jura wheel of Montbéliarde milk, aged for months or years
- Emmental: The cheese with the big holes
- Beaufort: Savoie wheel with concave sides
- Appenzeller: Swiss wheel washed in a herbal brine
- Raclette du Valais: Melting cheese of the Valais, scraped by the fire
- Fontina: Aosta Valley cheese for fonduta
- Bergkäse: Mountain cheese of Austria and Bavaria
Good to know
- Alpine cheeses keep for weeks in paper; scrape the cut face if it dries.
- Grate young wheels for fondue and gratins, and serve old ones in thin slices.
- For fondue, mix two or more Alpine cheeses and stir them slowly into the hot wine.
- Small crunchy specks in old wheels are crystals of an amino acid, not salt.
Sources and further reading
- Swiss-type cheeses on Wikipedia
- Gruyère cheese, Wikipedia
- Comté cheese, Wikipedia
- Emmental cheese, Wikipedia
Original text by the EveryCheese desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Customs are described as tradition, not as advice. If we have something wrong, tell us.
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