“Tentation” is French for Temptation, and with one look at this creamy, gooey, ultra-rich cheese you’ll understand why. Created in 1992 at La fromagerie de l’Étoile du Vercors near Grenoble, at the foothills of the French Alps in southeastern France, Tentation de Saint-Felicien is a triple cream cousin of the more common double cream Saint-Felicien, and the added cream bumps it up to a luscious 70 percent fat. It’s made from cow’s milk collected every two days from neighboring dairies. It’s a new-wave cheese made utilizing a very old-fashioned method, called ladle molding, in which the curd is hand-ladled into small molds called faisselles before maturing for up to two weeks in ripening rooms.
This stunning cheese has a delicate wrinkly rind and a slight mushroomy aroma, and when ripe the interior is as rich, silky, and creamy as pastry cream or mousse. As for the flavor, it’s fresh, mild, and milky and not overly salty. It’s just begging to be smeared on a fresh, crusty baguette or alongside ripe berries, but you can be forgiven for just eating it straight with a spoon.
- Pairings: Sparkling wine, chablis, sauvignon blanc, dry riesling, pinot noir, Beaujolais
Ingredients: Pasteurized cow milk, pasteurized cow milk cream, salt, rennet, lactic ferments
Nutritional information coming soon
Nutritional information coming soon