A couple of days ago I reviewed The Pampered Goat, a delicious cheese in its own right, but today we have our first French Chevre, and though it may be pasteurized and shipped across an ocean it still packs a punch and would fly off a cheese platter faster than you could say "spreadable happiness".
Chevre is the French fresh goat cheese, rindless, not aged, just curd that's been formed to a certain shape and sold as is. It's moist, tangy, spreadable, and pretty much just about the most decadent cheese money can buy. Now, if you were so lucky as to be in France it'd probably also be unpasteurized, but because it's so young (they make weekly shipments of this stuff to us poor Americans and it's still not fresh enough) it must be pasteurized to meet US customs regulations. Curses. What this means for us cheese lovers is a whole lot of sub-par to downright disgraceful "chevre" cheeses and a handful of heavenly morsels like today's Couturier.
It's brought to us by Soignon, a large French operation that has a few other notable goat cheeses, and for a reasonable price it can be yours. Be advised, though, because this stuff is worse than Pringles; once you pop the fun don't stop until you wake up one day in a stranger's house in cold sweats having just sold your last earthly possession for another hit of chevre.
Origin: France
Milk: Goat, pasteurized
Rennet: Animal
Affinage: The slings and arrows of time have yet to assail this fine cheese
Notes: 21% fat per solid content, making this a whole lot of decadent punch for a relatively light footprint. My advice? Go wild.
Thoughts: A perfectly indulgent soft goat cheese, the flavor shocks each part of the mouth as it hits it and is not too crumbly to work with. A rich flavor, strong as fresh goat cheese goes, is great by itself and a delight with dried fruit. I mentioned last time I reviewed a chevre that most all chevres will be pretty comparable within a range, with some great above that range and then a lot just rotten below it. This falls into the 'above' category; it is as delicious as a masterfully crafted cake... and it almost resembles a cake too. The kicker here is that it is only a hint at what is possible when made according to the original recipe and raw goat's milk, and just like the way French Brie in France is what even imported, pasteurized French Brie could never be, the promise of what awaits is tantalizing.
Caution
Eating a pound of cheese and a carton of fresh strawberries by yourself in one sitting isn't normal. On chevre it is.
CHEVRE, not even once.
never had french chevre[french goat brie is about my fave cheese so far]--is it worth about 2x[$10/11oz] the cost of l. chenel brand made in ca., or silver goat brand[wherever that's made] ? {wish it were raw too!!] --TIA p.s. what kind of shelf life once opened?
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