Ju Shardlow: My name's Ju, and today I'm at
the Emmentaler Schaukäserei
to show you how traditional Emmentaler cheese is made.
Now, I'm actually in the village of Affoltern in Emmental,
which is in a region just east of Bern.
Eighty percent of all Emmentaler production
comes from this region, with 150 producers.
And its name comes from here.
There's the nearby river, Emme,
and tal, meaning valley in German.
In the US, it's known as Swiss cheese.
Emmentaler has iconic holes in it,
and it's also the world's largest cheese.
Emmentaler AOP can only be produced
in these regions in Switzerland.
It was granted AOP protection from the EU in 2002,
meaning that these areas are
the "protected designation of origin."
But there are a few qualifications for this:
The milk has to be from dairy farms no fewer
than 20 kilometers away,
and it must be produced using raw milk.
17,700 tons of Emmentaler are produced each year
in this region by 150 family dairies.
Cheese production started in this area over 200 years ago.
It's a hilly region, so good for cattle grazing.
The Emmentaler Schaukäserei show dairy
was opened in 1989.
Cesare Mimo Caci: The process of cheese starts
at the farmer, so we need high-quality raw milk.
Then we heat up the milk to 32 degrees.
We put inside the bacteria, the rennet.
We have to wait because the rennet make a relationship
between the fat and the protein.
You are cutting the curds down to a size of
4 up to 6 millimeters.
And then you heating up over time to 53 degrees
and pumping up to the forms,
and then you are pressing that for 12 hours.
Ju: The cheese is pressed under hydraulic pressure
for up to 12 hours.
It then spends eight weeks in the warm fermentation cellar
at 22 degrees Celsius.
It then goes into a storage cellar for up to two months
before it's collected by the wholesaler.
This makes the famous sweet taste
and smooth texture of the cheese.
The world-famous holes?
They're created by a reaction in the bacteria.
After one month of storage, a strain of bacteria,
Propionibacterium shermanii, consumes lactic acid
and releases carbon dioxide.
These bubbles become trapped in the cheese rind
and form holes, also known as eyes.
But why are the cheeses so large?
The size of Emmentaler wheels is heavily regulated,
as most have a diameter of 80 to 100 centimeters.
They need to be a minimum of 75 kilograms.
For cheese produced here,
a kilogram costs 19 Swiss francs, or $19,
so one wheel could cost over $1,900.
Cesare: We have to pay taxes also in Switzerland,
and 200 years ago, they have the recommendation
that you have to pay the taxes on a piece
and not on a kilogram,
so they make a big cheese wheel
and they have to pay only once the taxes,
and still 200 years
we producing this minimum 75-kilogram wheels.
Ju: The cheese is matured
into a four-month Classic,
eight-month Réserve,
12-month AOP Extra,
and the 24-month Le Roi d'Emmental.
Cesare: The taste of the Emmentaler AOP, it's unique.
And we compare to copies,
and it's comparing if you take
a red wine and a good red wine.
Ju: We visited the Schaukäserei restaurant
to try the cheese.
I'm gonna go for classic, it's four-month aged.
What you can see is the springy,
kind of rubbery texture to it.
Let's give this a try.
It's so much more flavorsome than other Emmentaler
that I've had.
It has a really full flavor to it
because it's made with raw milk,
not pasteurized milk that you might get in the States.
It's just a very, very, kind of full, rich, milky flavor.
It's very tasty.
But how does this differ to the 12-month aged?
It's a lot less kind of springy and bouncy to the touch.
But that rich, nutty flavor is really starting
to come through.
This room, downstairs, where we went into here in the dairy,
was the room where, the minute you walk in,
there's a beautiful nutty aroma that hits you,
and that is exactly what you can get in the cheese now.
It's gone from sort of, like, a fruity, mild cheese
to something which has this texture to it
and is very nutty.
To be an authentic Emmentaler cheese,
it needs to have the Emmentaler logo
and a bespoke cheese number.
Cesare: On the rinds, we put our brand on top
before we press the cheese,
and it's something like a tea bag,
and this is growing directly into the rind,
so if you are cutting the cheese wheel into pieces,
on each rind you should find
a part of this Emmentaler Switzerland logo
and you find also a number on top.
And with this number, our customers can go on
our website, Emmentaler.ch,
and give this number inside, and Google Maps shows you
where this product was produced and which dairy.
Ju: And the dairies need to have this protection.
Emmentaler is the world's most copied cheese.
Cesare: So, 95% of that,
what is sold as a Swiss cheese
or a cheese with holes called Emmental,
are fake Emmentaler, so the Emmentaler Switzerland,
the brand, is protected by the AOP label,
and we have also a bacteria inside our cheese.
We are the only brand, cheese brand, who are using this one,
and so we can not only look on the package,
if it's original Emmentaler AOP,
we can also analyze this product.
These are our activities and the brand itself
we have people who are working only
for searching the original between the copies.
So it's a big work behind it.