Cheese from Selles-sur-Cher

Goat cheese — goat's milk cheese, I should say — is a fact of life here in the Loire Valley, on the same way that châteaux, wines, and rillettes de porc are. All are incontournables — they are the "essence" of the region, and there's no getting around them. Goat cheese is called fromage de chèvre, or just le chèvre or du chèvre, gramatically masculine because le fromage is understood, as opposed to la chèvre, the feminine form describing the female animal that gives the milk.

Saint-Aignan is on the edge of the aire géographique de production, the production zone, of the cheese called Selles-sur-Cher, after the name of a town just 10 miles up the river. Selles-sur-Cher goat's milk cheese has been protected and regulated by an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (A.O.C.) for about 40 years now. Cheese-makers must adhere to strict rules in order for their cheeses to carry the Selles-sur-Cher label.

Goats' milk cheese from Selles-sur-Cher in the Loire Valley

One of those rules is that the goat's milk used to make the cheese must come from animals raised within the production zone along the Cher River, including parts of the old Sologne and Berry provinces. The native plants that the goats feed on in this particular area give a special flavor to their milk, which has to be full-fat (whole milk) and raw (unpasteurized). It is curdled with a small amount of rennet (présure in French) and the little round cheeses are sprayed with a mixture of pulverized wood ash and salt, which also helps give them a distinctive flavor as they age.

Goat cheese with French bread, bien sûr

Selles-sur-Cher cheeses are shaped like little disks about an inch high and three to four inches across, with slightly beveled edges. The cheese itself is a pure white color, and it is smooth but with a very fine grain — it's very slightly chalky in texture. Each one weighs about 7 ounces when fresh, but that weight decreases to 5 ounces as the cheese ages and dries out.

The cheeses are aged a minimum of 10 days at 55º to 60ºF and 85 to 95% humidity. You can buy Selles-sur-Cher cheeses fresh, semi-dry, or dry. The flavor intensifies as the cheese ages and dries out. Fresh ones are good spread on bread melted, and very dry ones are good eaten as they are with bread or grated into sauces. All are good sliced and slightly melted on bread served on top of a green salad — that's called une salade de chèvre chaud.

A semi-dry chèvre from Selles-sur-Cher —
it's what I had for supper last night.

As they age, the cheeses develop a slightly blue-colored mold on their crust. At the markets around Saint-Aignan, I often hear customers asking the cheese vendors for « un bleu » — un bleu mi-sec or un bleu sec — and what they mean is a goat cheese that has been cured or dried the way they prefer it. They're not asking for what is called "blue cheese" elsewhere.

People who know recommend that you not scrape or cut the crust off a Selles-sur-Cher goat's milk cheese — you should eat it along with the white cheese inside. The powdered wood ash and salt give the cheese a good flavor. The mold or fungus that grows on them is actually good for you and enhances the mild, nutty flavor.

Click this picture to enlarge it and you'll see a bluish mold
starting to grow on it. It's natural and good to eat.

About 40% of the Selles-sur-Cher cheese is made on farms by farmers, and the rest is made in dairies or co-ops. Production has really taken off over the past few decades. Selles-sur-Cher cheeses are widely available locally as well as in the Paris area. There is now an export market for them in other European countries and even in America.

The AOC label on cheeses, wines, and other French agricultural products is a protection for customers and for producers. If you want to know you are getting an authentic Selles-sur-Cher cheese, look for the label and logo. The same goes for wines and other products from different regions of France. Producers can be sure that others are not "counterfeiting" their products.

Locally, we don't worry too much about it. We more or less know the producers, and we buy what looks good. Many small producers of cheeses and wines only sell locally. Getting the AOC, with all the paperwork and inspections that are required, isn't worth their time and trouble. Most of the time, the local wines and cheeses we buy don't have labels on them at all, in fact.

The pure white cheese under the crust is starting
to soften and turn liquid around the edges.

Sometimes goat cheeses, though, are made from batches of milk that are collected over time, combined, and even frozen or dried to be used later. Those kinds of methods are not allowed under AOC rules.

A lot of people say they don't care for goat cheese. I think those people need to try some fresh Selles-sur-Cher or other fine Loire Valley goat cheese. As your taste for it develops, you can move on to cheeses that have benefited from longer aging, from the mi-sec (semi-dry) up to the very sec (dry and hard). You won't find any unpleasant "goatiness" in these cheeses, which are sweet, mild, and healthful.

Selles-sur-Cher goats' milk cheese goes especially well with a dry white wine — a Touraine Sauvignon, a Quincy, or a Sancerre, for example — or with a light-bodied red from Touraine, including but not limited to Chinon, Bourgueil, or Sancerre wines. All these products are a regular part of the local diet.