Cheese Dairies to Visit in Switzerland

Which One to Visit

Come to Gruyères if you have one day: the show dairy sits right next to the train station, the castle town is a 20-minute walk up the hill, and a combined ticket covers both. The Emmentaler and Appenzeller dairies are in quieter countryside, better reached by car or by bus from the nearest station.

The Cheese Regions

Gruyère and the Fribourg Pre-Alps

Gruyère AOP and Vacherin Fribourgeois AOP, the two cheeses in a moitié-moitié fondue, come from here. See Gruyère made at La Maison du Gruyère, watch the wood-fire method at the Moléson alpine dairy in summer, and eat fondue on a vintage train or a horse-drawn cart (see cheese fondue in La Gruyère). Nearby Charmey holds the best-known Désalpe on the last Saturday of September.

Vaud: L'Etivaz and the Vallée de Joux

L'Etivaz AOP is made only in summer, in copper cauldrons over wood fires on the alps of the Pays-d'Enhaut, and ripened in the cooperative's cellars at La Maison de L'Etivaz, where you can book a cellar tour. Further west, the Vallée de Joux makes Vacherin Mont-d'Or AOP, a soft cheese wrapped in spruce bark that is only sold from autumn to spring; its festival in Les Charbonnières coincides with the cattle coming down in late September.

Emmental and Central Switzerland

The Emmentaler show dairy at Affoltern is open every day. Around Lake Lucerne, Sbrinz AOP, an extra-hard cheese once carried over the Alps to Italy by mule, gives its name to the Sbrinz Route. Emmi's sandstone cave at Kaltbach, where cheese is ripened, runs guided tours.

Appenzell

The Appenzeller show dairy in Stein makes cheese daily. In the Alpstein mountains, a dozen alp dairies make cheese every summer morning, and the herds go up in May and June and come down from mid-August.

The Jura

Tête de Moine AOP, the cheese shaved into rosettes with a girolle, was first made by the monks of Bellelay Abbey. The Maison de la Tête de Moine sits in the abbey grounds and makes cheese over a wood fire in its historic dairy.

Valais

Raclette du Valais AOP is the cheese for melting at the table. The village dairies and alps of the Val de Bagnes bring their wheels to Bagnes Capitale de la Raclette in Le Châble each September.

Graubünden

Near Pontresina in the Engadin, the Alp-Schaukäserei Morteratsch makes cheese over an open fire every summer day, a short walk from a stop on the Bernina line.

When to Go

• All year: La Maison du Gruyère, the Emmentaler and Appenzeller show dairies and the Maison de L'Etivaz shop. The Maison de la Tête de Moine closes in January.
• May and June: the herds go up to the alps. In Appenzell this is the Alpfahrt, between mid-May and the end of June.
• June to September: alp cheesemaking. Moléson runs from 1 May to late September, Morteratsch from early June to early October, and the Appenzell alps make cheese from June to the end of August. The open alp dairy day in Appenzell is the last Sunday of July.
• Late August: the Säumerfest in Sachseln starts the mule caravan along the Sbrinz Route.
• September: the herds come down. Chästeilet in the Justistal falls on the Friday before the Federal Day of Thanksgiving, and the Désalpes at Charmey, L'Etivaz and Les Charbonnières and the Bagnes raclette festival are on the last weekend of the month.
• October and November: cheese markets in Huttwil, Fribourg, Lucerne, Appenzell, Bern, Rapperswil-Jona and the central Swiss valleys (see Swiss cheese festivals), and the start of Vacherin Mont-d'Or season.
• Winter: fondue season. The Train Fondue runs from Bulle on set days from late October to early May.

A Five-Day Cheese Route

Day one: Gruyères. La Maison du Gruyère in the morning while cheese is being made, then the castle town, and fondue in the evening. Day two: the Pays-d'Enhaut over the Col des Mosses for a cellar tour at L'Etivaz (book ahead), or the Moléson alpine dairy if it is summer. Day three: the Emmental, for the Emmentaler show dairy at Affoltern. Day four: the Bernese Jura for the Maison de la Tête de Moine at Bellelay (Wednesday to Sunday). Day five: east to Appenzell for the show dairy at Stein and, in summer, a hike to an alp dairy in the Alpstein.

In late September, swap a day for a Désalpe. Charmey is a short drive from Gruyères.

Getting Around

Every stop on this list is reachable by public transport. Gruyères has its own station next to the show dairy, Morteratsch has a stop on the Bernina line 200 metres from the alp dairy, and buses or PostBuses reach Affoltern, Stein, L'Etivaz and Bellelay. A car is easier if you want to link several rural dairies in one day, but on Désalpe days the villages close their roads and parking fills by mid-morning, so take the train or the festival shuttles.

More Places to Taste and Buy Cheese