Its Reputation and Its Odor Precede It

T a cheese dairy called La Laiterie de la Côte, in the village of Brochon in Burgundy, last fall, I was struck by a display in a refrigerator case of little chèvres on sticks, each one a single bite, like a cheese lollipop, but covered with a furry down of gray mold.

I could not imagine an American palate embracing these little goat's milk cheeses. The French are different, though. If it tastes good, the French say, it is good, and it makes no difference what it looks like -- or how it smells.

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But I had come to the Laiterie de la Côte to learn about an even more off-putting cheese, Époisses, arguably the most deliciously pungent, the most highly regarded and -- fairly or unfairly -- most infamous raw-milk cheese in France, if not in the whole world.

Two brothers, Sylvain and Olivier Gaugry, own the laiterie, one of just four dairies that produce Époisses, which is made from the milk of cows that graze pastures stretching from the town of Époisses in the Auxois eastward to the Côte d'Or in Burgundy. Sylvain Gaugry, who showed me around the dairy, called Époisses "the most fragile of all cheeses." The process involved is painstaking, requiring a delicate balance of temperature and humidity. And, as with all fine raw-milk cheese, good bacteria present in the milk must be allowed to flourish to enrich flavor without creating dangerous bacteria that can lead to illness.

"But you can't measure the balance," he added. "It's an ideal that you sense, that comes from experience."
For some, though, including the United States government, the threat of bad bacteria in young raw-milk cheese outweighs the prospect of richer flavors.

The Food and Drug Administration bans the import of cheeses made with raw milk aged less than 60 days, like Époisses, Brie de Meaux and Vacherin-Mont d'Or, although some still make it past customs and can be found in specialty cheese shops and restaurants across the United States. (Even though the appellation for these cheeses requires the use of raw milk, versions made with pasteurized or heat-treated milk may also be made to sell in the United States.) Young raw-milk cheeses, the agency claims, have not developed acids and salts that fend off pathogens like listeria, salmonella and E. coli.

But while pasteurizing milk eliminates pathogens, it can also eliminate the microbes that create a cheese's character and flavor.

Moreover, some dairy scientists say pasteurization also destroys beneficial bacteria that can protect against dangerous pathogens like listeria. Dr. Catherine Donnelly, a microbiologist at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences of the University of Vermont, who has been studying listeria for 20 years, said such microbes occur far more frequently in cheeses made from pasteurized milk. "Pasteurization," Dr. Donnelly said, "just gives a false sense of security."

Époisses developed a special notoriety in 1999 when two people in France died from listeria-contaminated cheese that was sold as Époisses.

The French government closed the plant that made the cheese, on the same day that a court ruled that the company had illegally infringed on the identity of the consortium of genuine Époisses makers. No one can say for certain, but it appears that the false Époisses may have been made with pasteurized milk.

"It's taken us three years to recover," Mr. Gaugry said.

So how have the French, the Italians, the Swiss managed all these years to eat soft, oozing raw-milk cheeses without massive attacks of food-borne illnesses?

The dairies in France that produce the finest artisanal cheeses are mostly small in scale compared with industrial producers, said Rob Kaufelt, the owner of Murray's Cheese Shop in Manhattan, and the milk they use comes strictly from local producers. "I have seen a number of these cheese dairies," Mr. Kaufelt said, "and they are extremely closely inspected."

Transparency and traceability, twin watchwords of post-mad-cow food production in Europe, are more easily achieved at this level, he said, so that if something does go wrong, production or distribution can be halted quickly.

Mr. Gaugry showed me around his family's spotless, white-tiled factory. The method used to produce Époisses is what the French call caillé lactique, in which the curd develops slowly over many hours at low temperatures with very little rennet, a process that encourages the development of both fine flavors and the acidity that helps to inhibit the growth of pathogens.

Hand-ladled into molds, the curds are set to drain for 24 hours, then unmolded, salted and left to dry and ripen on stainless steel shelves in a pristine white-tiled room with controls on temperature and humidity.

The final touch in producing a great Époisses is the periodic washing of the rind of each cheese, eight or nine times during the ripening period, which lasts at least 28 days but can go as long as eight weeks. The bath starts off as a salt brine. Then a little marc de Bourgogne, the high-octane distillate of Burgundy wine residues, is added, the proportion of marc increasing each time the cheese is dipped until, finally, the liquid is almost entirely marc.

As they are bathed and set to mature, the cheeses start to take on color, first a pale biscuit tan and then, as they age, a redder hue from the red mold that gives Époisses much of its character. Finally, the cheeses, each weighing 250 to 350 grams, about 9 to 12 ounces, develop a shiny, golden-red surface, as if glazed with sugar syrup. They are sent to market in small, round wooden boxes, each containing a single cheese.

(The legal Époisses nearest the United States is in Montreal, in the central Atwater Market. The Fromagerie du Marché Atwater there often has splendid Époisses, including that from the Gaugry family's laiterie; 514-932-4653. Another good cheese shop in the market is Au Paradis du Fromage; 514-933-7422.)

The best Époisses, Mr. Gaugry said, is made in spring or autumn, when soft rains turn the pasture grasses lush and green and cows produce protein-rich milk. The resulting cheeses are unctuous in texture and intriguingly complex in flavor, with an elusive, buttery, sensuous fragrance that is like white truffles in the mouth -- virtually impossible to define but unmistakable when you taste it.

The characteristic aroma of Époisses, a pleasantly agreeable barnyard scent, does not intrude on the palate and in fact tends to disappear with age, and is replaced by a mineral complexity, as I found when Mr. Gaugry offered me a taste of his personal best, a cheese that was almost three months old.

Époisses that old is not generally available so I bought one to take with me back to my hotel, reflecting as I did so that at 90 days of age, it was well within the F.D.A.'s requirement for raw-milk cheeses.

"Vous allez parfumer le monde entier," Mr. Gaugry said as he shook my hand. "You're going to perfume the entire world."