Beaufort cheese has an inimitable taste… Its ingredients ? Mountain cow’s milk, alpine flowers and traditional know-how.

An extraordinary floristic biodiversity

Beaufort is a cheese made in Savoie, with a cooked pressed paste, raw and whole milk, renowned for its inimitable fondant taste and subtle aromas. This cheese, made from the milk of Tarine and Abondance cows, is produced in the high mountains of Savoie. Here, the flora is breathtaking and allows Tarines et Abondances to produce very high quality milk. 95% of the cultivated areas are permanent grassland, from endemic species. During the summer months, the cows are in the mountains, several hundred meters above sea level. The herds are made up of Tarines and Abondances breeds, perfectly adapted to the terrain. The Beaufort AOP sector has 17,000 cows. Milking takes place at altitude. In addition to the animals, it is also the humans and all the equipment that leave the bottom of the valley for the meadows at altitude. Neither treated nor plowed, these grasslands benefit from an extraordinary floristic biodiversity : dandelions, meadow salsify, buttercups, violets, geraniums… They also provide hay to feed the animals in winter. Each wheel weighs 40 kilos on average and can be kept for a long time thanks to the cooking of the curd, salting and maturing, which takes place in a cold and humid cellar.

5,160 tonnes of Beaufort AOP were produced in 2019.

The taste qualities of Beaufort AOP cheese reach their maximum intensity between 7 and 12 months of ripening. 5,160 tonnes of Beaufort AOP were produced in 2019. Beaufort d’hiver, made with the milk of cows returned from the mountain pastures, has a lighter body and less pronounced aromas. As for the summer Beaufort, it is eaten in winter, after 5 months of maturing. It is made from milk produced by cows in the mountain pastures and brought back down to the valleys. Finally, the Beaufort called “chalet d’alpage” is made during the so-called 100-day period, from June to October, when the cows graze in the pastures. Its production must be carried out above 1,500 meters above sea level, twice a day, according to traditional methods in mountain chalets, with the hot milk from the milking which must only come from a single herd. This type of Beaufort is rarer: only 400 tons are produced per year.