Comté

French Comté

The Comté cheese originates in the Jura in the French Comté. It is a mountainous, rugged and traditionally poor area near the border with Switzerland. The cheese clearly shows Swiss influences and is related to Gruyère. The cheese is also known as Gruyère de Comté. It is a nutty, creamy cheese and one of the most eaten cheeses in France and is suitable as a dessert cheese on bread and as melting cheese in fondue. It is one of 44 French cheeses that may hold the European AOP quality mark. This quality mark serves as proof of the cheese's origin, but also indicates a consistently high quality.

Regional cheese

Traditionally, the Comté cheese was a common product of several farmers from one of the many Jura villages. They are large cheeses and weigh up to 500 kilos. This makes them easier to store in the winter, but one farmer cannot supply so much milk in a short time to produce such large cheeses. The cheese dairy is the center of the village, where the farmers deliver their milk several times a day. Milk production is traditional as well. In the summer the cows roam the mountains, in the winter they are supplemented with feed from the region. In this way, the origin of the milk for the cheeses is limited to the region.

Wines

The Comté is an excellent match with wines from the Jura. The wine region in the Jura is not very large and not very well known, but produces some good and very characteristic wines. Furthermore, the Comté cheese is particularly suitable for cooking: soup, savory pie, fondue, grilled cheese, the Comté has many purposes and is to most people’s liking. Its strong yet soft taste suits many dishes and gives a great spicy impulse.