Alpine Cheese is Slowly Disappearing From Store Shelves and The Reason Behind It Is Truly Worrying
Up above in the towering mountains of Europe, cow herders diligently follow a tradition called “transhumance” every year. At the arrival of early spring, when the blanket of snow enshrouding the Alps starts melting away, these herders take their cows into higher mountain grounds, so they can feed on fresh meadow grass and produce bounteous quantities of milk, per CGTN Europe. They haul pails full of milk and pour it into cauldrons placed upon the stove, waiting for it to convert into cheese. Nowadays, this tradition seems to be disappearing from the Alpine mountains, and so does Alpine cheese.
When Hannah Howard, a food writer for Food & Wine, visited a cheese cave in Italy’s Valle d’Aosta, she discovered that most of the shelves were empty. Howard, who “loves stinky cheese,” was disheartened. She delved deeper into the declining production of one of Italy’s iconic mountain cheeses and discovered the real reason. “Fontina producers are making significantly less cheese than usual, brought on by a perfect storm of challenges: climate shifts, rising costs, labor shortages, and changing consumer habits,” Howard described.
What is Alpine cheese?
Also known by names like mountain cheese or alpage cheese, Alpine cheese comes from the milk of cows who graze in the rolling meadows and lush pastures in the mountains of Switzerland, Italy, France, and Austria. It is an umbrella term that covers hundreds of different types of cheeses, including the most popular ones like Le Gruyère AOP, Fontina DOP, Comté, and Taleggio.
According to The Spruce Eats, Alpine cheeses come in a wide range of flavors, from nutty to fruity, from spicy to herbal, from floral to buttery, and more. Semisoft in texture, the cheeses are good at melting. Many of them also have “holes” or “eyes” as seen often in the infamous Swiss cheese. Howard shared that these cheeses go well with wines like a Beaujolais cru or drier white wines like Sancerre.
Distressing reason behind decreased production
Emma Fuchs, an Austrian cheesemaker, spends her summers in the Allgäu Alps with her husband Richard, making a type of cheese called Alpe Loche. The cheese matures for a year in a stone cellar tucked under their home. She shared with Food & Wine that one reason for vanishing Alpine cheese is “climate change.” The seasons are shifting. “We used to go up the mountain in early June. Now, we go in early May,” she explained.
“The grass grows faster, but not better. There’s less snow, which means less water. The cows have less to drink, and the grass is less nutritious. It looks okay, but it’s not,” she added. Howard noticed that less snowmelt resulted in parched pastures. Valleys slinging around these pastures were drying out due to global warming. With sun scorching above their heads and grasses dying under their feet, cows have less and less food to eat, resulting which them producing less and less milk. Hence, the reduction in cheese.
Other reasons
Howard’s trip to Italy revealed some other reasons behind declining Alpine cheese production. Lack of young labor, for instance. An employee of a cheesemaking company confessed that young people don’t want to be herders anymore. They don’t want to hike up the hills with cows and spend long months under spells of loneliness and deadening nights. They want better-paying jobs.
Michele Buster, co-founder of Forever Cheese and creator of Save the Shepherd, is taking measures to debunk this mythical image and inspire young people to participate in cow grazing and cheesemaking. “We need to stop picturing cheesemakers as mountain men with walking sticks,” said Buster. “There’s incredible technology and innovation happening. This work can be modern. It can be cool. But we need to show that.”