Seasonality

Respecting The Seasons

Many cheeses are seasonal and should be eaten in season to discover and enjoy them at their best. Winter is synonymous with bad weather, naked pastures and high humidity. There is no fresh grass and animals are fed, at best, with hay or, at worst with silage. Consequently their milk is less rich and lacks character - not the perfect start for great cheese! The Spring and Summer, however, bring early rays of sun and fresh grass to the pastures benefiting milk with new aromas that will enrich the cheese made from it.

The cheese lover would therefore be advised towards selecting cheeses made in the Spring, Summer and early Autumn. The one exception is Vacherin-Mont d'Or which is traditionally made in the autumn-winter and its unique recipe gives it a superb quality for this time of year. Taking into account the time that each cheese needs to reach optimum maturity, one discovers a cheese calendar of immense variety.

Spring heralds a superb cheese season which will reach its peak by the summer. Young, citreous flavoured goat cheeses become available just a few weeks after the animals start to produce their milk. By summer soft cow's milk cheeses such as Camembert are reaching their peak. Autumn brings a revival in the pastures where the second growth wells out of the parched dry summer soil. This is how veined cheeses retain their summers flavours, the goat cheeses regain their strength and the soft cheeses fade away for another year. Winter months rely on the hard cheeses made months earlier during the grazing season.

The table below provides a reference for enjoying cheese in season.