Reblochon

Reblochon is a soft washed-rind and smear-ripened French cheese made in the Alpine region of Haute-Savoie from raw cow's milk. It has its own AOC designation. Reblochon was first produced in the Thônes and Arly valleys, in the Aravis massif. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reblochon


The house we stayed in had 2 levels, the family lived upstairs, friends of their brother from Canberra were allowed to stay downstairs in the rental apartment cut into the hill. It was a wonderful house; small, timber and alpiney, perfectly nestled into it’s ski slope location in the French alps. We were very happy visiting this house. One day we walked out the back, up a step green field with fat bees and delicate flowers, through a wood and onto a mountain top. It was amazing.


The English/Australian family had two young children, primary school aged, and only just young enough to be a part of the hyper elite ‘flying blue’ ski team that didn’t allow you to join unless you started skiing before you turned 6. They lived in a postcard, an hour’s drive from Mont Blanc, spoke French at school, watched The Tour roll through town in summer and were very welcoming to Dani and me 9 years ago.

One day we decided to drive over the mighty Col Des Aravis mountain ridge, past ‘milk carton perfect’ cows, along a valley, gently through a lovely village, delicately up a relentlessly steep, switch back climb with our tiny rental car hogging 48% of the tiny 2 lane road and into the village of Chamonix. Chamonix rests in the shadow of Mont Blanc, an epic ice packed mountain that caps Europe. ​

We took the cable car up to the fortress like visitors centre, marvelled at the stone cold heroes who ice-picked their way up there, had a hot chocolate and walked the lower half of the way down. There is a cute train that takes holiday trippers to see a glacier. Our plan was to walk down to the train and take it back to the village. We missed the last train, just. People waved at us from the departing carriage as we jogged towards the station. We looked at the glacier then trotted down to Chamonix as the sun moved towards the peaks.

To celebrate the lack of rolled ankles we ordered a huge pizza and Dani went to buy cheese from a deluxe cheese shop. The lesson from this arrangement for me was that if you send Dani into the shop, you get good stuff, but you also get home in the dark.


The drive back down the tiny, dark, mountain road was super scary. But we had these delightful macarons from the macaron shop next to the deluxe cheese shop, so that was good.


Back at the little alpine house with the family and the wood. We handed over a beautiful wheel of cheese to the ski team school kid, it was his birthday. “Reblochon, my favourite!” he exclaimed and scurried away to get a head start on the smear-ripened goodness. ​