Langres: Champagne & Cheese

Cheese Atlas — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 23:58:00 +0000

Protected by an AOP stamp

Langres is a traditional French soft washed rind cheese that has held an AOC stamp since 1991 and an AOP stamp since 2009.

Effectively, the AOP dictates that it can only be made in the Bassigny and Langres communes in Champagne-Ardennes. Moreover, the milk has to come from Montbéliarde, Simmental or Brune cows that are pasture fed for a minimum of 6 months a year.

A traditional farmhouse cheese

The recipe has been largely unchanged since the early 19th century when Langres was almost exclusively a farmhouse cheese. Fresh cow’s milk that is still warm from milking is renneted and the mixture is left to curdle in sandstone pots. Once the curd is formed, the young cheese is transferred to terracotta moulds called fromottes.

Afterwards, the formed cheese is then removed from the mould and laid on plane tree leaves. During maturation, the affineur never turns the cheese.

As a result of this, the signature fontaine forms on top of the cheese, which is a tiny concave dip. However, the affineur does regularly wash the wheels of cheese with a brine and annatto solution which produces a wrinkly orange rind.

What Langres tastes like

Despite its pungent aroma, Langres is actually quite mild on the palate. While it is much milder than the most famous French washed rind, Epoisses de Bourgogne, this brainy cheese still has incredible depth.

As a matter of fact, its flavour ranges from mild savoury notes to complex tastes of beef broth and bacon.

How to pair Langres

Celebrate the local terroir by pairing with Champagne. You can even pour a small amount of Champagne into the fountain and let it soak through the cheese.

Furthermore, Langres pairs beautifully with a white or red Coteaux Champenois.

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