Mont d'or ( Vacherin du Haut-Doubs ) small / 400g / Cow/Raw/Animal Rennet / soft washed / 25% fat /Strong cellar smell, creamy, meaty, balsamy taste, liquid gold when ripe. 

Vacherin is seasonal as it is only produced from 15 August to 15 March, the first few ones will be sold after a minimum 21 days ripening period when our cheese is bound with a strip of spruce cambium ( a thin membrane found under the bark which allows for a tree's growth ) and placed in its familiar spruce wooden box.
I do enjoy the very first few vacherins of the season as cows were grazing when they were made. Once boxed and filmed for sale, our cheese will no longer be washed as it was during early ripening, a thin white duvet ( geotrichum ) will inhabit its surface and replace the original yellowey rind. It is not unusual to gently wash our cheese with an alcohol based solution a few days before use. Fair to say it is more for aesthetics than taste.
To decide on the ripeness of your cheese, keep an eye on the use by date, the closer to this date the riper your cheese. A gentle pressure on the rind should gently bounce back. The spruce will indeed impart flavour to our cheese, the longer it stays in there the woodier it will therefore become. I hope you will find the stage of ripeness you enjoy.
 
 
Also available in 700g size.