Region

Franche-Comté

For eight centuries, the farms of the Jura have pooled their milk to make a single wheel.

11 products · 4 official quality signs

The winters of the Jura massif made turning milk into keeping cheese a necessity from early on. Yet a wheel of comté requires around four hundred litres — far more than a single farm can supply. Farms therefore joined forces: they brought their milk to a shared workshop, the fruitière. The earliest written mentions of 'fructeries' date back to the 1260s — a fruitière was attested in Poligny as early as 1263.

This village cooperative system, born eight centuries ago, still exists today: comté is still made in some one hundred and forty village cheese dairies. Alongside it, smoking in the tuyé — the broad pyramidal chimney of Comtois farms — gave rise to saucisse de Morteau and that of Montbéliard.

AOCPDO Cheeses Bleu de Gex Haut-Jura Since the 14th century, the cellars of the Haut-Jura have guarded the secret of a subtle blue cheese… PGI Cheeses Cancoillotte Creamy, runny and golden, served hot with garlic or plain over a plate of potatoes: Cancoillotte is the… AOCPDO Cheeses Comté In the deep valleys of the Jura, where winters last six months and people once learned to live on what… Label RougePGI Cheeses Emmental français Est-Central Nine hundred litres of milk for a single wheel — Emmental Est-Central is a cheese of patience… PGI Cheeses Gruyère Four hundred litres of milk, a minimum of eight months' maturing, and the patience of the Jura cellars… Charcuterie Jambon de Luxeuil A ham smoked over white woods, matured for up to eleven months in the cellars of Luxeuil-les-Bains — a… AOCPDO Cheeses Mont d'Or / Vacherin du Haut-Doubs Each autumn, when the cows descend from the snow-covered alpine pastures, Mont d'Or reappears — runny… AOCPDO Cheeses Morbier A line of black ash runs through the centre of its paste like a signature: Morbier bears the history of… PGI Meat Porc de Franche-Comté Without this pig, slowly reared on Comtois farms, neither Saucisse de Morteau nor Saucisse de… PGI Charcuterie Saucisse de Montbéliard Golden-smoked and fragrant with caraway — saucisse de Montbéliard is the queen of choucroutes and potées… PGILabel Rouge Charcuterie Saucisse de Morteau In the secrecy of the tuyés, where fir smoke has risen slowly for centuries, the Belle de Morteau is…

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