Day Two Sixty Eight - Spotlight - Vacherin Mont D'Or - A Fall & Winter Delight!

Vacherin Mont D'Or is one of those spectacular winter cheeses! A pasteurized washed rind cow's milk cheese made in Switzerland, this creamy unctuous specimen is a delight for the tongue. Only available for purchase from September 10th through May 10th, it is made yearly from August 15th through March 15th and is then aged for six months before sale.

What makes this cheese so special?

Well of course the unique flavor and aromas but also the fact that the cheese is encased in a spruce bark box which adds to those tastes and smells... The cheese has that classic orange-y tint of a washed rind cheese but the wooden mould that helps to aid and shape it causes the cheese to have a mixture of a white-ish orange-ish exterior.

This is decadence at its best -- sweet, luscious, creamy, a little bit stinky, mushroomy, and barnyardy, with that woodsy warmth from the spruce bark. A must try for those late fall and winter get-togethers with friends!

Vacherin Mont D'Or has a strikingly similar cousin across the border into France -- Vacherin du Haut-Doubs which is pretty much made in the same manner except for the fact that raw milk is utilized in this cheese's production as opposed to the Swiss pasteurized version...just in case you were curious..

You can definitely find Vacherin Mont D'Or here in the US, its French cousin less so...but go out and grab a round of the Swiss version, I guarantee you will be in cheese heaven.