Roquefort, a raw milk
sheep cheese

Raw milk,
a bowl of well-being

In the whiteness of raw milk, a whole landscape is secretly reflected. Flora of the causses, microbial flora of sheep’s milk collected for Roquefort: both compete in variety and aromas. Infinitely large and infinitely small.
Raw milk contains the life of a region: the vagaries of its climate and the course of its seasons, the development of its plants and the vitality of its agricultural tradition.

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Pasteurizing milk would be like impoverishing the landscape. Unimaginable in the land of the Grands Causses! Raw sheep’s milk gives Roquefort cheese its power and richness of taste, the subtlety of its aromas and the variations of its flavor. A whole range of sensories. Raw milk therefore, but not only: whole milk too, which contributes to the creamy texture of the cheese and the pleasure of its tasting.

Producing Roquefort with raw milk implies one requirement, the intensity of the taste, and imposes another, food safety. From the sheepfold, from the conservation of fodder for the ewes and throughout the production process, the sector of Roquefort ensures constant control of dairy quality. Raw milk is a living raw material, it encourages precaution just as it invites creativity.

That’s why we speak, in connection with raw milk, of microbial biodiversity. Cheese production based on raw milk precisely protects biodiversity. It preserves the existence of local ferments, it perpetuates agricultural practices which maintain rural space and refuges for fauna and flora. It is also the guarantee of a diversity of flavors and tastes, an invaluable sensory heritage.

These sheeps that we like to see in the pasture

Good grass, good milk

The virtues of grazing

Eat well and eat locally: for the sheep too!

Sheep know the secret of quality raw milk inside out. Open-air grazing, among meadows of grasses and legumes, has an incomparable impact on the nutritional richness of their milk. Add to that healthy forage conservation and keen attention to animal welfare. All the ingredients of a good raw milk are there.
Alfalfa and sainfoin, white clover, trefoil, barley and wheat, a whole grimoire of magic herbs is savored by the ewes on the pastures and hay meadows. The herd grazes from March to December, mostly in the evening in summer, and stays in sheepfold in winter, lambing period. Between pastures, stored fodder and nutritional supplements, at least 80% of the sheep’s feed comes from the milk collection area.

The Lacaune sheep, stars of the shepherd

Slice of history

Slide 1

Milk, wool or meat? At the end of the 19th century, sheep breeders from the mountains of Lacaune bet on dairy production for Roquefort. Thus is born the sheep Lacaune, which results from the interbreeding of several local breeds: ewes from Camarès, Larzac, Lauragaise, Rodez, Causses and Ségala, with also infusions of merino and Southdown blood. Fertile breeding: from
1905 the special competition for the Lacaune breed is held.

Slide 2

Not all sheep grow easily in the climate of the Grands Causses! In 1810, a general of the Empire, Jean-Baptiste Solignac, took possession of the Baume estate and settled there a thousand merinos from Old Castile, of which he was governor. A Larzac farmhouse with merinos? Much more like a castle in Spain. The adventure is cut short, the sheep of the peninsula not supporting the cold.