Roquefort

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Roquefort (AOC 1925 — France's FIRST AOC cheese, and arguably the country's most famous blue) is a sheep's milk blue cheese aged exclusively in the natural limestone caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in the Aveyron, where unique geological conditions — natural fleurines (fissures in the rock face that create constant air circulation at 95% humidity and 8-10°C) — provide the environment that develops Penicillium roqueforti and gives the cheese its incomparable character. Roquefort is made from the raw whole milk of Lacaune sheep — a breed specifically selected over centuries for milk production in the harsh causse landscape. The milk is coagulated, the curd cut and ladled into perforated moulds, and Penicillium roqueforti spores (traditionally cultured on rye bread left in the caves) are sprinkled between layers of curd. After draining, the young cheeses are salted and transported to the caves, where they are pierced with needles (28 per cheese — a precise number) to create air channels that allow the mould to develop throughout the paste. Minimum affinage: 90 days in the caves. The finished Roquefort (2.5-3kg wheel) has an ivory-white paste shot through with irregular blue-green veins, a moist, crumbly texture that breaks into chunks rather than slicing cleanly, and a flavor that is powerful, complex, and unmistakable: sharp, salty, tangy, with notes of sheep's milk sweetness, damp cave, blue mould spice, and a long, peppery finish. Roquefort is the world's most imitated blue cheese — and the most impossible to replicate, because the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon are unique. In the kitchen, Roquefort appears in salads (with walnuts and endive), in sauces (melted into cream for steak), in soufflés, and in the canonical pairing with Sauternes or Banyuls — the sweet wine-blue cheese combination that is one of gastronomy's great discoveries.

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