Swiss Cheese Maker Showcases Traditional Methods

Jennifer Vernon
for National Geographic News

October 5, 2005

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Happenstance helped restore a centuries-old tradition to the Swiss village of Pontresina.

It was there that Hansjürg Wüthrich, a commercial cheese distributor, spied a 250-year-old building where village tradesmen once made cheese by hand.

When Wüthrich learned of the old building's history, he decided to relocate to Pontresina. For the past decade, he has been demonstrating the craft of handmade cheese to visitors.

Turning Milk Into Cheese

Making cheese by hand is a lengthy process, but Wüthrich considers it a labor of love.

Born into a farming family, he used to take the milk from his father's dairy herd twice daily to the local cheese maker. Wüthrich says he was influenced profoundly by what he saw there. "This is my business," he recalled thinking.

Wüthrich later went on to study and master the craft of cheese making.

Now based in Pontresina's renovated cheese dairy, Wüthrich uses milk from the herds of four local farmers, who bring their cows in the summer to the mountains to graze under his care.

Wüthrich makes cheese only from mid-June through September while the cows feed on nearby alpine slopes and are available to milk.

Milking the cows both starts and ends a day of cheese making at the dairy. Wüthrich mixes the collected milk with bacteria and rennet—an enzyme derived from calf's stomach that helps coagulate milk proteins to form the solids that become cheese—and then heats the ingredients to 86°F (30°C).

After 30 minutes, the heated milk mixture has thickened enough to be cut into small pieces with a utensil called a cheese harp. The resulting product has a consistency similar to cottage cheese. Wüthrich then warms it slowly to 118°F (48°C) for an hour and a half.

Afterward, Wüthrich pours the mixture into molds, where it is compressed for six hours to squeeze out excess moisture before being stored overnight.

The next morning, Wüthrich removes the new cheese from the molds and soaks it in salt water for six hours. He then cures the finished cheese for six weeks to a year to age it and bring it to full flavor.

"Swiss" Cheese

Switzerland produces some 450 types of cheeses, which vary in consistency, flavor, color, and size. Some of the most well-known varieties are Emmentaler, Appenzeller, Tilsiter, Le Gruyère, Vacherin, Tête de Moins, Raclette, Sbrinz, and Bündnerkäse.

Emmentaler, with its signature circular holes, most resembles what many in the United States characterize as "Swiss" cheese.

Wüthrich concentrates his own efforts on producing two specific cheeses at the Pontresina dairy: Gletschermutschli, small 2-pound (0.9-kilogram) wheels of cheese that are aged six weeks to three months, and Heutaler, 15-pound (7-kilogram) wheels of cheese that are aged for a year.

Over the course of a summer, Wüthrich typically collects over 10,000 gallons (40,000 liters) of milk and produces nearly 9,000 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of cheese by hand, selling it to area hotels and restaurants.

In winter, Wüthrich makes pre-prepared fondue, a wine and cheese mixture heated and eaten with bread, that is sold through delicatessens and airport shops.

When asked to make his own preference among the hundreds of Swiss cheeses known, the master craftsman is quick to say, "I have a favorite cheese, yeah—that's our cheese."

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