La Religieuse
- Producer
- Fromagerie du Presbytère
- Country
- Canada
- Region
- Quebec
- Weight
- 13 lbs
- Website
- www.fromageriedupresbytere.com
- Milk
- Cow
- Treatment
- Thermalised
- Classification
- Firm
- Rennet
- Animal
- Rind
- Washed
- Style
- Alpine-style
Fourth-generation dairy farmer Jean Morin has found remarkable success as a first-generation cheese producer. What’s his secret? “Happy, healthy cows,” Morin says. “It all starts with the milk, and the care we show the cheese as we make it.”
Morin’s brother, Dominic, manages the herd of mainly Holsteins and Swiss Brown cows. Sons and a daughter represent the fifth generation already at work on the organic dairy farm, La Ferme Louis d’Or, and—across the street in the village of Sainte-Élizabeth de Warwick—at La Fromagerie du Presbytère. The farmstead cheese business takes its name from the rectory (presbytère, in French), which the Morins acquired in 2005 from the Roman Catholic church next door. Cheesemaking started in 2007.
La Religieuse is a term that is used in the Swiss and French Alps. It refers to the crispy, cooked parts of a fondue (the cheese that gets stuck to the bottom of the pot), as well as to the rind of the wheel of cheese that gets cooked, crispy and hard when it’s being toasted to make raclette. For this version of raclette, produced at the Fromagerie du Presbytère, “La Religieuse was a predestined name,” according to the Morins. Wheels are aged from 3 to 6 months.
Tasting Notes
Rich and fondant, this raclette-style cheese melts beautifully and exhibits notes of butter, fruit and flowers.
Pairings
Pair it with a white Fendant or Chablis.
