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Alsace
Born from a handful of farmers determined to save their breed and their mountain, Cœur de Massif is as much a human story as a cheese — that of a massif fighting not to disappear.
Cooked pressed cheese from Alsace.
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Cœur de Massif is young: it was conceived in October 2015 by the Organisme de Sélection de la race Vosgienne, stemming from an initiative launched in 2014 by around fifteen farmers from the Vosges mountains across Lorraine and Alsace. Its history remains marked by the urgency that long hung over the breed: struck from the official breed catalogue in 1947, the Vosgienne had plummeted to just 3,000 head in 1977, before a handful of farmers revived it and its numbers stabilised, standing today at around 10,000 head. Creating a mountain cheese made exclusively from Vosgienne milk, distinctive enough to justify a higher price, became an additional lever to make the breed economically viable and support this revival. This was how Cœur de Massif emerged, not as a traditional cheese handed down through centuries, but as an act of agricultural and cultural resistance.
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The production area covers the entirety of the Massif des Vosges on both sides of the ridge: the Alsatian slope (Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin) and the Lorraine slope (Vosges, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Moselle), as well as Haute-Saône and the Territoire de Belfort. All these lands share a common foundation: the animals consume neither silage nor maize, nor GMOs, and are fed on pasture grass for at least six months of the year. The milk of this hardy breed lends itself well to cheese-making, with an average yield of around 4,200 litres a year and a balanced composition renowned for the distinctive flavours it imparts to processed products. It is this terroir of grass and altitude that gives Cœur de Massif its fruity aromas and supple paste.
In just a few years of existence, Cœur de Massif became a 'victim of its own success' according to France Bleu: as early as 2017, demand was already outstripping production (47 tonnes a year for around fifteen producers), to the point that the producers issued an appeal for farmers of Vosgienne cows to join them. Ten years after its creation, the cheese is made by 21 farmers for an annual output of around 25 tonnes, sold mainly through direct sales. This new outlet has helped increase the Vosgienne herd by around 2,000 head, meaning it is no longer considered a breed under conservation status — the breed thus largely owes its recent revival to it. Over the next ten years, the producers hope to secure a PGI (IGP).
Appearance
Distinctive square shape — 29.5 × 28 cm sides, 6 to 8 cm thick, 5 to 8 kg at the end of maturation. Thin, 'rugged' natural rind (ridges, irregularities), greyish to brown, with 'blooms' of yellow to brown pigmentation that develop naturally. Ivory-yellow paste, with small openings.
Aroma
Mild and milky, with grassy and fruity notes evocative of mountain pastures.
Taste
Mellow and unctuous cheese, mild, with a rich fruity flavour linked to the grass-fed diet of the Vosgienne cows on the massif.
Texture
Supple paste — the signature of a cooked pressed cheese — with small openings.
Only one type of cheese exists under this name. The specifications set a minimum maturation period of two months before consumption, but some producers extend the ageing beyond this for a more pronounced character. The square shape (29.5 × 28 cm) is constant — it is one of the criteria of the charter.
Minimum maturation of two months before tasting, with the wheels turned and tended regularly in the cellar.
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Its mildness and fruitiness make it an accessible cheese, ideal on a cheeseboard or for cooking. It melts remarkably well (tartiflette, gratin vosgien, fondue). For drink pairings: a Pinot Gris d'Alsace or a Riesling, but also a lightly hopped artisan Vosges beer. On a cheeseboard, it works well alongside Munster — one powerful, the other mild.
Family-run
GAEC
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