Soumaintrain (cheese)

Soumaintrain is a French soft cheese made exclusively from whole cow's milk with a 21-day ripening period. It is named after the commune of Soumaintrain.

A minimum of 75% of the dry food the cows consume must be from the geographic area.

It was proposed to be a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) cheese in 2014 and was finalized in 2016.

Soumaintrain originates from north of Bourgogne where it borders the department of Aube. It is full of grasslands with wet valleys, which is conducive to dairy farming but discourages other agricultural pursuits. The soil is predominantly loose and impermeable clay and is difficult to cultivate with machines. The area has a topography that is largely flat with little undulation, with a dense hydrological network set among soft, impermeable rocks, which combines to create a susceptibility to flooding between autumn and spring. Temperatures are somewhat cool with an annual average that barely exceeds 10 °C. Rainfall is regularly between 700 and 800 mm.

Production
The process of making Soumaintrain can be traced to the Middle Ages. The earliest evidence of ripened cheese dates back to a twelfth-century abbey in Pontigny which was founded in 1117. Henri Auclerc (1887–1968), a priest in Vergigny linked cheese-making and the abbey when he asserted that: ‘the Cistercian monks demanded payment of farm rents in ripened cheese’.

The traditional production method of Soumaintrain is described numerous times in nineteenth-century literature. Essentially, the fresh cheese curd is poured into moulds and allowed to drain. The cheese is turned twice daily for two days until fully set. After which it is salted on both sides and then washed with brine daily until the outside develops its colour.

Washing the cheese periodically removes surface flora which develops because of the prevalent humidity of the region. The specific technique used for washed-rind ripening combined with the fresh curd starter leads to the defining characteristics of Soumaintrain, a moist rind, a colour that ranges from ivory to pale yellow, centripetal ripening (the cheese ripens from the outside in, but rarely ripens to the centre), intense aroma and characteristic refined bitter aftertaste.