In the bowels of Roquefort, a long and patient maturation of a cheese like no other

La visite des caves Roquefort Société fait plonger le visiteur à plusieurs dizaines de mètres sous terre, là où les fromages sont affinés durant de longs mois. Midi Libre – Michael Esdourrubailh

The small Aveyron town welcomes thousands of visitors every year, who come to discover the history of this unique cheese. Visit to the heart of the Roquefort Société cellars.

First of all, there is the implacable contrast. The one that grabs the visitor, unprepared, in his little summer outfit, by the throat. By diving into the bowels of the Roquefort Société cellars, we go, in a few minutes, the time to go down the stairs that plunge into the vast basements, from more than 30 degrees to 8-10 degrees.

This is how we enter this very special world, which has always made the reputation of the small town in Aveyron, nestled in the hollow of a discreet and peaceful valley. We are at the top of the village and at the foot of the scree of the Combalou mountain, which dominates the site. "It's 8 to 10 degrees and 95% humidity", says, with a wry smile, Laurence Guibbal, head of tourism activities at Roquefort Société.

First cheese in AOP, in 1924

The scene is thus set for a visit to understand an ancestral know-how that one day invited itself onto our plates. Roquefort is not a cheese like the others. And not only because it was the first cheese to have obtained the famous AOP, the Protected Designation of Origin. That was almost a century ago, in 1925.

The visit allows you to understand the whole process that makes sheep's milk a cheese with such a particular taste. From a simple recipe: 98% raw sheep's milk, Penicillium Roqueforti and Camargue salt. “Without adding preservatives”, insists our guide for the day. There, just half an hour from the Millau Viaduct, the universe is completely different.

Cellars that are “three times the size of the village”

Once past the entrance, you quickly dive into these immense cellars that wind, dozens of meters underground, almost faithfully parallel to the main street of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon (the full name of the village). “These cellars are three times the surface area of ​​the village”, notes Laurence Guibbal, who specifies that they were developed “as early as the Middle Ages”.

More than cellars, you would think you were in the heart of cathedrals, the ceiling is so high. And it is precisely this height that is used to develop, on different levels, wooden floors on which are arranged the shelves on which the fresh cheese will begin its long maturing process.

Wood, a precious material for maturing

If the ancients chose to furnish the premises with wood, in a highly mineral universe, it is because it presents characteristics conducive to the objective of refining. “Wood is an excellent material in this particularly humid environment, insofar as it captures humidity”.

In this very particular environment, in which the cellars were built, on no less than eight levels in the rock, the wood, stone and fleurines “form microclimates preserved by the Master Refiners of the Company”. Each element complements the other in perfect osmosis to serve one of the most popular cheeses in the rich French range.

Fleurines, “the lungs of the cellars”

Throughout the visit, multiple entrails in the rock accompany the route. These are the fleurines, natural faults, “through which the air passes”. They are “the lungs of the cellars, they allow them to breathe”. It is also amusing to stop in front of a few of them and to feel, in the middle of a cathedral silence, the freshness of the air that circulates there.

Discovering the partner farms of Roquefort

If the visit to the Roquefort Société cellars ends, as it should, with a tasting of the different powers of the cheese, it can also take another form. That of the visit to the partner farms, installed in Aveyron and in the neighboring Tarn. The discovery of the partner farms, those which deliver the raw milk of Lacaune sheep, number more than a dozen. This is the other side of understanding what makes up the world of Roquefort cheese, that which consists of going to the meeting of these sheep farmers, of their profession, who tell the process that leads to the plate and to the origin of which the farm plays the basic role.

If nature has shaped this strange subsoil, man has magnified it, by finding the ingenious idea of ​​maturing a cheese there that one day took the name of the place. We end up understanding the legend through this unexpected geology. It is there, in the heart of the maturing cellars, that we begin to understand the secrets of making a cheese, the AOP Société, which claims 70% of the space dedicated to cheese in the village.

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