A Lesson in Comte at Formaggio
Dan and I attended a very special class at Formaggio featuring Comte, a very famous and award-winning French cheese, that was taught by Formaggio’s owner, Ihsan, and the store’s international cheese buyer, David. While I’ve attended many Formaggio classes over the years on a variety of topics, this was the most fun because the class had many unexpected surprises. Before we began class, you could tell from the setup that we were going to have fun because of the fondue pot and absinthe fountain.
First, a little about Comte cheese. Comte is an unpasteurized cow’s milk cheese made in the French-Comte region of Eastern France near the Jura Mountains, and is the most produced cheese in the entire country. All of the high end older cheeses are aged in Fort Saint Antoine and a new facility has been created in the region to age the younger cheeses. If you see Comte on menus in restaurants in the US, you’ll only find the younger cheeses (Trois Sapins, Melodie, and Fort Saint-Antoin are examples) as American cheese importers are not permitted to sell the aged cheeses commercially. Historically, Comte cheeses were only aged for 3 months, however affineurs began experimenting with aging cheeses for longer periods of time in the 1960's, and now the longest aged Comte cheese is the Extra Grand Cru at more than thirty-six months. When purchasing Comte cheese, you want to see the famous green label, which means you are buying the highest quality Comte cheese. (A brown label is considered “grocery-store” cheese, but it is better than most of the cheese you’d find in the typical grocery store in the US.)
When tasting cheeses, you want to think about the three phases. During the Beginning, you want the cheese to taste light and easy on the palate. The Middle phase is the most flavorful and you can have many competing flavors in a higher quality cheese as compared to a lower quality cheese. The End should close out the flavor, and can sometimes be subtle or very strong depending on the particular cheese you are tasting. The duration of the flavors of a cheese depends on the environment in which the cheese is cured. Cheeses cured in a warmer environment have more flavors during the Beginning phase, while cheese cured in cooler environments have a longer flavor during the Middle. Comte is a cheese cured in a cooler environment, so its flavors are sustained during the Middle phase.
During “A Lesson in Comte,” we tasted six different Comte cheeses and went from the youngest to the oldest. First, we started with the Trois Sapins, which is a three-month aged Comte cheese that has a light flavor. Compared with the older cheeses, you can easily tell this and the other young cheeses have flavors that are not quite developed. Next, we moved on to Melodie that is aged for six months. Again, like the Trois Sapins, this is a young cheese that had simple flavors. Our last young cheese was the La Granges, which is aged anywhere from eight to ten months. The La Granges was the most salty of all the cheeses but it wasn’t overpowering. Of the young cheeses, La Granges was my favorite, and I regularly purchase it at Formaggio when the Grand Cru isn’t available.
We then moved on to the more aged cheeses, and started with the Fort Saint-Antoin (“FSA”) Comte cheese that was aged for six to twelve months. This cheese was the most flavorful in the Middle and had a bitter finish at the End due to hazelnut. Because of the bitter finish, this was my least favorite Comte cheese. Le Fort is aged sixteen to twenty-four months and had a saltier and darker flavor that comes with age. Finally, we finished with the Grand Cru (my personal favorite Comte cheese) that is aged twenty-four to thirty-six months. This cheese is the richest of everything we tasted during the class and is the perfect dessert cheese because of the rich and developed flavors. (We did not sample the Extra Grand Cru cheese that is typically aged for at least thirty-six months.)
We also sampled two wines with the cheeses — both Caves Jean Bourdy Cotes du Jura with one being the Blanc 2012 and the other the Rouge 2015. Both of these wines were made in the same region of France where Comte is produced. The wine makers of Caves Jean Bourdy Cotes du Jura have been producing wine since the Fourteenth Century in France, and I really enjoyed the white wine. I sampled the red wine, and thought it was okay, but as red wine isn’t my jam, that isn’t surprising.
After sampling the cheeses individually with various accouterments that included various preserves, cured meats, homemade liverwurst, bread, and mustard, David prepared three different fondues that each featured a different young cheese.
While waiting for the fondue to cook, Ihsan shared some of his homemade absinthe for us using the traditional water fountain method. I had never had absinthe before, so of course I had to try some and it was good. The fountain watered it down enough to where it didn’t burn going down when drinking it, however it was still very strong. (I was still feeling its heavy effects thirty minutes later.)
I learned some new things during this class: that I prefer older aged Comte cheese; and I am now obsessed with the Ardeche Eglantine preserve (which I have purchased); and I like absinthe (in moderation). As the Comte class has become an annual tradition taught by Ihsan, I look forward to going to this same class next year to see what other fun tricks he has up his sleeve to share with us.
(Monday, May 21, 2018 @julieschultz79 #mycrazylifeblog)
