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Each November the 70
Swiss families involved in the
production of L’Etivaz moun-
tain cheese learn how success-
ful their year has been.
Their wheels of cheese,
stored within the modern cel-
lars of
La Maison de l’Etivaz
,
are weighed and purchased by
the cooperative controlling the
production process. The tex-
ture, color, aroma and external
appearance of the cheeses that
have been delivered through-
out the summer are assessed
as part of strict quality controls
that help maintain L’Etivaz’s re-
gional
Appellation d’Origine
Contrôlée
(AOC) quality certi-
fication. Last year 445 tonnes of
this hard cheese, which some
people compare to Gruyère,
was produced.
L’Etivaz is produced only
between 10
th
May and 10
th
October, using milk from cows
grazing on mountain pastures
at an altitude of between 1000
and 2000 meters. Alpine herbs
and flora help give the cheese
its distinctive fruity flavor with
a nutty undertone.
In 130 mountainside farms
between Lake Geneva and Les
Diablarets cows are milked
each evening. Their milk is al-
lowed to stand overnight, allow-
ing the cream to rise, before be-
ing heated in copper cauldrons
hung over wood fires. It’s a tra-
ditional process and one that
would be familiar to cheese-
makers living in the Alps 500
years ago.
Many people visualize
Swiss cheese riddled with holes,
technically known as ‘eyes’,
formed by bubbles. L’Etivaz,
though, is solid. The newly
formed wheels of cheese are
pressed overnight up in moun-
tain chalets, helping to make
the presence of eyes unlikely,
before being delivered to the
chalet in the hamlet of L’Etivaz,
where 150 people live.
Cheese has been matured
in the cellars of La Maison de
L’Etivaz since 1934, two years
after the cooperative’s founda-
tion. The ripening process takes
a minimum of 135 days. Some
of the cheeses, which tend to
weigh between 15 and 35kg, are
matured for 22 months, becom-
ing pale yellow. Around 800
to 1000 of the 17,000 to 19,000
cheeses delivered each summer
are selected for extended ripen-
ing, lasting 30 months. These
are eventually served as dry, in-
tense tasting rolled shavings,
known locally as
rebibes
.
When the white-colored
fresh cheeses are delivered to
La Maison de L’Etivaz they are
steeped in a 22 per cent saline
solution for 24 hours, to provide
flavor and help a crust to form.
The cheeses, which have a di-
ameter of between 40 and 65
cm, are then stacked on shelves
for a week, where they are
turned daily have salt rubbed
into them. For the next 15 days
they are then rubbed with salt
three times a week before being
left to mature. The cheeses are
marked with a maker’s number,
allowing the annual output of
each producer to be tracked.
La Maison de L’Etivaz has
a delicatessen of regional prod-
ucts and runs tours of the cel-
lars.
ostavljaju se da odstoje 24 sata
u dvadesetdvopostotnom sla-
nom rastvoru, da dobiju ukus i
da se formira kora. Sirevi, preč-
nika između 40 i 65 cm, zatim
se na nedelju dana slažu na
police, svakog dana se okreću i
u njih se utrljava so. Narednih
15 dana so se utrljava tri puta
nedeljno i tek tada se ostave da
zriju. Sirevi su obeleženi bro-
jem proizvođača, čime se prati
godišnja proizvodnje svakog
proizvođača.
La Maison de L’Etivaz or-
ganizuje obilazak podruma sa
delicijama regionalnih proizvo-
đača.
Sir sazreva u podrumima
La Maisom L‘Etivaza od 1934.
e
Cheese has matured in the cellars
of La MaisomL‘Etivazasince 1934
Zadruga se nalazi u centru planinskih
pašnjaka na kojima pasu krave
e
The cooperative is located in the middle
of mountain pastures where cows graze
