Le Serpolait

Parc naturel régional Gruyère Pays-d'Enhaut - All year round, Esther and Jean-Claude live and work on their family farm at La Comballaz, situated at an altitude of 1,400 metres.
In the summer, they take their 15 cows up to their mountain pastures in Sonnaz, overlooking Les Mosses. Every morning and evening, Jean-Claude milks the cows and returns back to the farm with this white gold, which Esther uses to make hard cheeses, raclette cheese and tomme. All are made from raw Alp milk which has been heated in a copper vat over a wood fire, and are left to mature in the farm’s ripening cellar. They are then sold directly on the farm, in the local area (Les Mosses, Le Sépey, Leysin) and further afield, in Lausanne and Geneva.
Their signature product is the hard cheese Le Serpolait, which takes it name from the locally foraged dried wild thyme [‘serpolait’ in French] that is dusted over the rind after the cheese has been in the ripening cellar for six to eight weeks.