Meet a Micro-Affineur
My friend "Raw Cheese Power" ages the best Bries under his house in France
One of the people I’m most excited to see next week is a guy just south of Paris who goes by Raw Cheese Power. He collects the best soft cheeses from around the region and ages them in a space under his house — in fact, there’s a trap door in his kitchen that opens to a ripening cave. Magnificent. I visited him & his wife last year and learned all about his business as a micro-affineur, which simply means that he ages cheeses on a very small scale. He plucks his favorite softies when they’re young, ages them to peak ripeness, then sells them at farmers’ markets or to private clients.
Next week, we’re teaming up for a tasting at Domaine de Courances, the site of my first Cheese Journey for the season. (I co-host tours each year as an educator for Cheese Journeys, a lactic-forward luxury-travel company run by a woman named Anna Juhl. You’ll meet her.)
Raw Cheese Power and I connected via Instagram about a decade ago. He hosted a group called The Dark Knights of the Cholesterol at a pub in London from time to time, which inspired me to start a rival cheese gang in Philadelphia, The Rennet Rough Riders. And so we began to correspond.
I learned his real name: Ian.
And his passion: raw-milk cheeses, funky rinds, and any wheels with blue bolts of lightning.
Last year when I visited Ian’s house, he emerged from a trap door with the most pillow-like, custardy, soft cheeses on a wooden board, then treated me to a tasting under his tree in the front yard. To eat a half-dozen perfectly ripe raw-milk cheeses under a tree in France is next-level living. Like eating oysters straight out of a bay. Except that you can actually eat oysters out of a bay in the U.S. Raw-milk cheeses, on the other hand, are illegal in the States, so finding them is next to impossible, let alone a half-dozen perfectly ripe ones from different makers — served under a tree!
So, you can see why I am eager to see Ian again.
Ripe, soft, raw-milk cheeses are the reason I come to France. I love the wine, too, and the people, and the number of cheese shops per capita, but it’s the soft cheeses that speak to me. Ordinarily, I’d prefer a blue cheese or a washed rind, but in France a perfectly ripened raw-milk soft cheese is like a peach. An impossibly lush peach.
Here’s the list of cheeses that Raw Cheese Power is ripening for our Cheese Journeys crew next week (some of these I know, some are new!):
I am already swooning.
Meet Raw Cheese Power for Yourself
If you’re in Paris and looking to day-trip for the finest local soft cheeses well, call on the “77th Degree Briemason” a.k.a. Raw Cheese Power, and tell him I sent you. He’s British, so he speaks English (obvi), and he’s partial to tattoos, taxidermy, and red wine.
You can also sign up to join me on the next Paris Cheese Journey 2024.
Bonus Trap Door Video!
Ohhh, you better just take a look at Ian coming up through the trap door of his cheese cave. It completes the fantasy.
More soft scoop
French Brie is made in the region around Paris — that’s where it originates. If you want to really live life, book it over to the villages of Meaux or Melun, where Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun are from respectively. It doesn’t get any better than eating these cheeses at the source.
Where I’m headed
I’m training from Brussels to Paris tomorrow to begin 3 days of tour prep with Anna Juhl of Cheese Journeys. Our first-ever Paris-area cheese tour runs May 21-28. Then, we’ve got two days off before we head to the Alps for a second Cheese Journey that whirls around France & Switzerland to explore Comté, Tomme de Savoie, Beaufort, and other beauties.
What I’m eating
It’s white asparagus season in Europe! Last night in Belgium, I ate a gorgeous plate of roasted white asparagus with melted butter and chopped egg at De Volksmacht Herk De Stad — a former socialist club turned Flemish brasserie. Of course, it came with Belgian fries.
What I’m reading
The Belgian City Every Beer Lover Should Visit
Belgian Café Culture, by Regula Ysewijn
Thanks for rolling along with me!
It’s been a pleasure to hear from so many of you about this newsletter. So far, you’ve asked for cheese sightings, travel
tips, stories about strangers (intriguing), and cheese festival gossip. You got it!