Sainte Maure de Touraine AOP (250g) - Les Freres Marchand

Milk: Raw goat’s milk
Type: soft paste with bloomy rind
Weight : 250 g
Fat : 25,2 %

Period of maturation: 30 to 55 days

Tasting advice
It may be enjoyed either creamy or dry. Served in thin slices, it makes a tasty appetizer. It may also be roasted in the oven.
Wine pairing
It may be enjoyed either creamy or dry, along with local wines or a light and fruity red wine such as Bourgueil, Chinon, Gamay or Cabernet d’Anjou. Alternatively, dry white wines from the region make a great match.

Appearance: Really thin and even rind with superficial grey and blue molds
Texture: Firm and homogeneous paste
Smell: Slightly goat smell
Taste: Characteristic goat cheese taste, mild taste. Depending on the season, the cheese can develop a nutty note

History
Sainte Maure de Touraine comes from Sainte Maure village, where every Friday, at the turn of the century, cheese-making farmers would gather to sell their products in the prestigious market hall of the village.
Every year, on the first weekend of June, the tradition comes back to life thanks to a large cheese fair of which Sainte Maure cheese is the king. According to a legend native to the plateau of Sainte Maure de Touraine, we owe this cheese to the Moorish invasions of the Carolingian era, during which the Moors (Maures in French) introduced goat raising.
Indeed, it is said that Arab women were the ones to teach how to make this goat cheese to the local population they assimilated to after the Moors were defeated at the Battle of Poitiers.

Fabrication
Marie Thérèse and Dominique make this delicious cheese in their own farm, located near Sainte Maure village, in Indre-et-Loire in the Centre region. This cheese is made from raw goat milk that is coagulated, and to which a small amount of rennet is added. The curdling of the milk takes about 24 hours. In order to break as little as possible the delicate curds, they are carefully poured into truncated cone shaped molds.
The cheese is then unmolded, slightly salted and sprinkled with charcoal. Ripening takes at least 30 days from the day of rennetting. According to a local belief, the log-shaped cheese must be sliced at its larger end first, failing which the goat that provided the milk for the cheese will not give milk anymore.