Comte cheese

We had a wander around town, had a coffee and bought some of the delicious pork saucisson and a new SIM card.

The coffee shop building was interesting with vaulted ceilings in the games room below.

We drove through fields of vines and past a big winery.

It was a short distance to Poligny to the Maison de Comte - the museum of Comte cheese - a type of Gruyère.

These are the local AOP cheeses meaning in English Protected Designation of Origin (PDO).

It educated us in how Comte cheese is made - and particularly the organisation around it. This has been going on for hundreds of years. There are many Comte cheese makers who operate under the umbrella Comte committee. Milk is collected by a Comte cheese maker from a group of dairy farms within 15 km of his fruiterie or cheese making business. This means there are several different types of Comte cheeses driven by the type of grasses and flowers the cows are eating. Once the cheese round is made it is stored and regularly turned and salted. The cheeses are stored for up to 3 years but you can get young and older ones.

At the end of the museum we got a guided tasting of 2 different Comte’s. One was young from winter and the other older from summer. The summer ones are actually darker to the more varied feed.

After that big education we drive south and foubd ourselves going uphill to a big plateau. We had a van lunch then found one of the Comte cheese makers in the same village. We bought a bit of Comte and a local blue cheese.

We then continued to Chateau Chalon - a very old village. The carpark for motorhomes was at the entrance to the village next to the ruined castle. It has been built in the 13th century to guard the salt route.

We then went into the village which is also ancient and above a big gully. The village is known for the yellow wine. It must have been hard coming up from the fields after a working day.

There was a stone shop with local fossils - of course many in this Jurassic area. There were also stones from overseas. Glenn found a nice ammonite snail with a bit of opalisation.

It was now very windy and hot and the forecast was for a stormy night. We went to a nice spot beside a fishing lake.

We were lucky to miss many of the heavy showers. Sitting outside there was a big thunderbolt about a mile from us . That was enough for me to go inside. Glenn was reluctant to go inside but put the chairs away and slowly came inside. 3 minutes later it was torrential rain and thunder and lighting all around. Occasionally I do make good decisions!

It was a bit rainy overnight but didn’t give us any problems.