DELI BUSINESS

CHEESE CORNER
for further ripening and added flavor
development. The cheeses must be aged
on spruce boards under precise climate
control and the care of the master refiners.
The temperature in the caves range
between 12 and 18 degrees Celsius and the
relative humidity is held around 92 percent.
While the cheeses are aging they are regularly
turned and washed with salt water.
The precise conditions and care have the
effect of retaining the unique qualities in
each wheel of Gruyère. The master affineur
will choose some wheels to be sold
as early as five months of age, while others
are held for up to 16 months.
The Alpine Family
Although Gruyère has a rind that is
washed, it is not categorized as a “washed
rind” cheese. Instead, it falls into the Alpine
family, even though most Gruyère today is
not produced in the Alps themselves but in
the relatively high altitude of the sub-Alpine
regions and the valleys below.
There are suggestions that cheese production
in the region dates back to Roman
times but this is highly speculative. Roman
influences may have helped shape its original
development but the Gruyère we
know today is an entirely different cheese
from the cheeses made 2,000 years ago.
It may not have taken that many centuries
to bring Gruyère to where it is today
but many factors have contributed to its
unrivaled quality and the stellar reputation
of the name itself. Gruyère is one of
the two oldest hard cheeses of Switzerland,
the other being Sbrinz, both of them
mentioned in medieval documents. Nonetheless,
suggestions that it dates back
2,000 years, and possibly longer, still linger.
Cheese has been one of the most
important export commodities for the
country since well before the various cantons
united to become Switzerland in 1291.
The other most ancient of hard Swiss
cheeses is the aforementioned Sbrinz, from
central Switzerland. Most other well-established
cheeses from around the country
today are descendants of the two, including
the iconic Emmenthal with which
Gruyère often is confused. Emmenthal has
holes but real Gruyère has no holes.
The ancestors to the hard Swiss cheeses
were being developed between the 11th and
16th centuries in central Switzerland and
especially in the Alps of Western Switzerland
— the home of Gruyère. Toward the
end of that interval the villagers bought the
mountain pastures from abbeys and peasants
who lived on the mountainsides took
care of those high meadows. They worked
in collectives and further developed summer
cheesemaking. These dairy practices
were the precursors to the cooperatives
still in existence today. The system favored
the production of large wheels and the
cool humid conditions of ripening cellars
further favored production of slow-ripening
cheeses such as Gruyère.
The production of full-fat rennet
cheeses only began to surpass those
crafted from sour milk in the 17th century
before the great export boom, and after
the first geographically clear denomination
of Gruyère was recorded in 1602. Lively
export markets developed in France, Italy,
Germany and Holland. The Dutch recognized
the sturdy nutrition source the hard
Swiss cheeses provided for their extended
maritime exploits.
The growing demand for full-fat hard
cheeses such as Gruyère caused many
dairymen to bring their dairies down to
the valleys, further reducing the availability
of butter, to the point that a conference
was called in 1619 to investigate the butter
shortage. The Thirty Years’ War slowed
the growth of the Swiss dairy industry and
during the second half of the 17th century
cheese production went into an extended
decline. Gruyère was one of the only
cheeses that continued to sell reasonably
well throughout that period however the
reduced demand caused many dairymen
of the Fribourg region to take their cheesemaking
skills to France. The Gruyère
styles they crafted in the French Alps and
the French Jura later became competitors
to the cheeses from Switzerland.
The growth of the dairy industry in the
valleys led to increases in production, to
46 DELI BUSINESS OCT/NOV 2015