A Visit to the Caves of Roquefort, France

Below, Sarah Woodward's Financial Times article about her visit to one of cheese's hallowed grounds, the caves of Roquefort, France.

All In: The Caves At Roquefort

I have never before seen a cheese trolley like it. We were dining in the inappropriately named Hotel Le Moderne in Sainte-Affrique, overlooking the now defunct railway station, just a few miles from Roquefort, home of the cheese. But a trolley of 12 different versions of this blue-veined treat?

We had eschewed the Roquefort special of the day (a soufflé, as it happened) in favour of a pastry parcel of foie gras and a dish of gently fried lambs' sweetbreads. But there was no escaping that trolley. It proved to be an educational experience.

Earlier that day I had discovered the complexities of making Roquefort. I did wonder whether in the UK you could attract enough people to make it worth your while running hourly tours of a cheese cellar (albeit free of charge). But this was France and when I visited the Papillon cellar there was a queue, with plenty of children, not one of whom uttered a single shriek during the 45-minute lecture. They seemed to be just as fascinated as I was by the tale of this ancient cheese.

There are all sorts of peculiar conditions attached to the production of Roquefort. This cheese, which is now popular the world over, is only authorised to be produced and ripened in cellars sited below a strip of land about 2km by 300m. In 1925 it was the first ever product to be awarded an Appellation d'Origine Contrôllée (A.O.C.), the stamp of gastronomic and vinous authority in France.

The story goes it was a shepherd who, having fallen in love with a shepherdess, first discovered its secret. He followed her over the hills of the Aveyron, leaving behind his bread and cheese in one of the caves dug into the hillside. When, after romantic disappointment, he returned to his victuals, he found them apparently mouldy. But the cheese, which had taken the spores from the bread, was delicious.

It may be a fairytale but there is no doubt of the cheese's ancient provenance. The Acte de Cornus dating from 1066 gave the monks at the local Abbaye de Silvanas the right to make Roquefort. Today, there are just seven producers who are permitted to entitle their cheese Roquefort (just as there are only six producers entitled to call the famous English blue cheese Stilton). All makers of Roquefort must buy milk that comes from ewes, specifically the breed known as la corne, grazed in the local rayonnement or region.

I heard that it takes 12 litres of milk to make one 2.8kg round of Roquefort. The milk must be unpasteurised. And because each sheep produces only between one-and-a-half and two litres of milk a day, that means a lot of ewes are needed, about 800,000 at the last count.

Once the milk arrives at the Roquefort producer, it is heated to 30°C and left for a couple of hours to curdle. Then it is salted and formed into moulds (known locally as pains), which are turned after three days. A couple of days later comes the clever bit, which gives the cheese its characteristic blue veins. The cheeses are pierced and the champignon or fungus of penicillium roqueforti is sprinkled over them.

At Papillon, the second largest producer after the vast Société, this mould is cultured from large loaves of pain de seigle or rye bread. To distinguish their product, each producer has their own secret and legally protected source of the fungus. At Papillon, they still bake their own loaves in wood-fired ovens and then leave them in the cellars for 45 days to produce the yeasty spores. Only 300 loaves a year are needed for their entire production. The words "noble rot" may be associated with the sweet wines of Bordeaux but they could just as appropriately be used here.

The reason that the cheese can only be produced in such a restricted area lies in the geology. Beneath this almost industrial-looking village clinging to the steep rock lie the cellars where the cheeses mature. Known as the fleurines, they have unique properties, associated with the passage of air. Although it is in the south of France, this is a region that can be cold and wet in winter. Inside the caves the temperature stays almost constant while the humidity is high.

The cheeses spend a minimum of 90 days ripening in the fleurines. They are given as much attention as expensive bottles of champagne. At Société, they even claim that each cellar gives the cheese a different flavour. Apparently the cheeses ripened in the Cave Abeille are believed to be more rounded and balanced while those in the Cave des Templiers are stronger on the palate. The Caves Baragnaudes produce cheeses that are softer, more delicate.

Finally, unlike a whole Stilton, you will never be able to buy a whole Roquefort. Before being graded for sale, the cheeses are cut in half so the affineurs can check that the blue mould has gone right through the cheese.

For many years I thought Roquefort was Roquefort, full stop. It has always been one of my favourite cheeses, for cooking with as well as serving plain. I love it melting on top of a rare steak, sprinkled over a salad of bitter leaves, baked into the hollow of a ripe pear. But it had never occurred to me that there could be such variation. Until, that is, my dinner at the Hotel Moderne.

Tastes for Roquefort differ around the globe. Papillon recently produced a new variety for export known as Révélation, a milder, less tangy version. Apparently, it goes down well in Japan. The recommendation was to eat it in combination with a slice of Pérail, a mild ewes' milk cheese. Then, according to the sequence in which it was suggested we try them, there was Cantorelle from Gabriel Coulet, which was recently awarded a Médaille d'Or and has a distinctly creamy texture. Le Crouzat followed, now owned once again by Société, bought back from the family to which it was sold decades ago, still made in the artisanal style. And finally Vieux Berger, or old shepherd, from one of the smallest producers, Yves Combes.

This is the cheese that the well-known London cheese shop Paxton & Whitfield has chosen to stock as its only Roquefort. As I compared notes with the manager Ruaridh Buchanan we agreed that Combes' cheese was particularly buttery in texture and also had the salty characteristic of traditional Roqueforts. We also agreed that it was extraordinary how much Roqueforts differ in style.

Some put it down to the different souches or spores used, others to the cellars. Having, on the same trip, tasted 1976 cognacs from Hine, one from the Jarnac cellars and the other from those in Bristol, I am inclined to the cellar theory. The French talk a lot about terroir, the soil, usually in the context of wine. But in the case of Roquefort, it seems it is all down to the caves.

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Got a hankering?

I know I did after I finished reading the article.

I'd recommend a visit to this cheesemonger's website.

You can find another variety here.

Two others here.

If you play your keyboard right, you could be enjoying some exquisite Roquefort real soon now.