Fromagerie Marcel Petite

The Comté of Marcel Petite is one of the region’s most brilliant images, a testament to the beauty of the Jura and the strength of its people.

In a land of long, harsh winters, villagers and farmers formed cooperatives in order to pool their milk and make cheese that would nourish them through the spring. The cheeses that resulted were large in format, able to age over a long period of time. For over 10 centuries Comté has been produced in the mountainous region that stretches between Jura and Doubs in the Franche-Comté region, and Ain in the Rhones-Alpes region. Matured for a minimum of 4 months, this large mountain cheese was one of the first few cheeses to receive an AOC (Appellation d’origine controlee) status in 1958.

Marcel Petite was an affineur who specialised in the cool, slow maturation of Comté. Petite wanted his Comtés to be aged in their natural environment, near the mountain cheese dairies where they were made. In 1966 he discovered a defunct military fort in a forest of Haut Doubt, known as Fort Saint Antoine. The fort’s structure of cut and vaulted stone, covered with a thick layer of soil, provided the ideal conditions for “Affinage Lent” (Slow Maturing). Today, over 100,000 wheels are ripened for 10 to 20 months, in the Cathedral of Marcel Petite Comté.