France, the land of a thousand cheeses!

A short tour of France's major cheese regions

It's no secret that France is the land of cheese! A veritable mosaic of flavors, the French cheese platter is one of a kind. Jewel of our gastronomy, cheeses take us on a journey to the heart of our regions. Their simple evocation smells of the countryside, the farm and the hay.

As for their exact number, 300, 1000 or even 1200, no one really knows. One thing is certain, today there are 46 cheese AOCs, which have become AOP since 2004 with the new European denomination. Appellations that guarantee the origin and typicality of our cheeses and protect them in France, Europe and internationally. All these PDO cheeses follow very strict specifications concerning production methods, processing and development, which must take place in a specific geographical area and recognized know-how.

Imagine, what would Normandy be without its emblematic Camembert AOP and the North without its Maroilles AOP, or even Burgundy without its Époisses AOP and the Basque Country without its sheep cheeses. To convince you, take a short detour to these 4 regions symbolized by their cheese!

1 - Camembert from Normandy, one of the emblems of France!
It is true that with the Eiffel Tower, the beret and the baguette, Camembert de Normandie remains in the collective unconscious one of the symbols of France throughout the world. To bear the name Camembert , the cheese must be made in Normandy and to have the Protected Designation of Origin, it must be raw milk and made in Normandy with milk from Normandy cows.

2 - Epoisses, Burgundy in all its splendor
A famous cheese with character, recognizable by its orange rind, made from cow's milk, Epoisses offers a soft and creamy paste that all amateurs and enlightened connoisseurs of quality cheeses will enjoy.
Its manufacturing secrets, the rubbing of its rind with marc de Bourgogne and its maturing on rye straw have survived the centuries. Recognized by the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée in 1991 (which became AOProt égée), Epoisses regained its letters of nobility, in part thanks to the work carried out by Robert and Simone Berthaut who relaunched the farm production of this cheese in 1956. The family tradition has continued, and the Berthaut cheese dairy, the last cheese dairy installed in the village of Epoisses, continues in excellence, faithful to the original recipe which made the originality and the typicality of L'Epoisses Berthaut, the quality benchmark for all lovers of Epoisses!

2 - The North of France proud of its Maroilles cheese
The most popular cheese from the North is, without a doubt, Maroilles , a cheese made famous thanks to Dany Boon's film "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis".
Maroilles is a washed rind cow's cheese that has been awarded AOC status since 1955. It owes its name to the village from which it originates, a village located in the heart of the Avesnois Regional National Park. According to connoisseurs, it is the finest of strong cheeses, and owes its particular taste to the cellars in which it is matured. If it can be eaten at the end of the meal, the Maroilles can also be cooked in a pie or in a sauce to accompany meat and poultry. Awarded every year since 1995 at the General Agricultural Competition in Paris, Maroilles FAUQUET (a company created in 1925) has become the market benchmark!

2 - Sheep cheeses, a true standard of the Basque country

“Ardi gasnas” in Basque, these sheep's cheeses are one of the great specialties of the region, classified in three Protected Designations of Origin, Ossau-Iraty , Roncal and Idiazabal. It is in this beautiful family of sheep's milk cheeses that we obviously find Etorki cheese, which means "origin" in the Basque language. Made since 1979 in Mauléon, Etorki cheese, through its taste qualities and its personality, became the first of the Basque sheep's cheeses to have extended its notoriety well beyond the borders of the South-West!