More About Raclette Cheese

The Raclette Cheese collection at Epicerie Corner brings together 41 products for Alpine-style melting cheese dinners — natural raclette slices and wheels from Les Croisés, Richesmonts, Entremont, Ermitage and Maison du Fromage (2.3kg wheel); flavoured raclette variants (smoked, 3-pepper, mustard, white wine, wild garlic, chilli, Italian, Viande de Grisons); Ermitage Tartiflette Cheese 500g, Les Croisés and Richesmonts tartiflette formats; Les Croisés and Richesmonts fondues; and Nos Régions Reblochon de Savoie AOP 450g, Reblochon AOP 240g and Mini Mont d'Or AOP 400g.

Raclette Cheese and the Raclette Dish

The raclette is both a cheese and a dish built around it. The name derives from the French verb racler — to scrape — referring to the original practice of heating a half-wheel of Alpine cheese beside an open fire and scraping the molten layer onto potatoes, charcuterie and cornichons. The cheese itself is a semi-hard pressed uncooked (pâte pressée non cuite) cow's milk cheese from the French and Swiss Alps, with a fat content of at least 26% and a natural supple rind. Its hallmark is clean, even melting without the rubberiness of some hard cheeses or the separation of fats seen with soft cheeses. The original geographic reference is Raclette du Valais (Swiss AOP); the French version is Raclette de Savoie (IGP), the largest-volume French Alpine melting cheese. Most commercial raclette sold in France — including the range here — is produced in Savoie and the Jura without carrying the IGP, but made according to the same pressed-uncooked technology.

Natural Raclette

• Entremont Raclette Saveur d'Antan 350g: a whole-milk raclette with a longer maturation, giving a more pronounced rind and stronger flavour. Entremont Raclette Sans Croûte 350g: produced without the outer rind ("sans croûte"), which eliminates the need to trim before use. Entremont Plateau 3 Raclettes 600g: a mixed assortment of three raclette varieties on one plate.
• Raclette Maxi Natural Cheese in Slices 800g and Natural Raclette in Slices 400g: the Les Croisés standard natural sliced raclette in family-size and standard formats. Raclette Nature Sans Croûte in Slices 700g and Raclette Duo Natural and Smoked 400g: further Les Croisés naturals including the rindless 700g slab and a dual-pack combining natural and smoked. Maison du Fromage Raclette de Savoie IGP Wheel 2.3kg: a full small-wheel in the IGP designation — suited for using with a tabletop raclette heater that scrapes directly from the wheel, rather than a multi-pan appliance that uses slices. Richesmonts Classic Sliced Raclette 420g, Richesmonts Sans Croûte 420g and Richesmonts Sans Croûte in Slices 750g: the standard and rindless formats from Richesmonts.

Flavoured Raclette Slices

• Smoked: Ermitage Smoked Flavour 200g, Les Croisés Smoked 250g, Richesmonts Duo Nature & Smoked 420g and Smoked Raclette ×17 Slices 500g. Smoking (typically with beech wood) adds a light smoky note to the raclette's mild dairy base. 3 Pepper: Ermitage 3 Peppers 200g, Les Croisés 3 Pepper 250g, Pepper Raclette ×17 Slices 500g, Richesmonts Duo Nature & Pepper 420g. These incorporate black, green and red peppercorns (mignonnette de poivre) as inclusions in the paste.
• Mustard: Les Croisés Mustard 250g and Mustard Raclette ×17 Slices 500g. White Wine: Les Croisés White Wine Flavour 250g — white wine is a traditional pairing with Alpine cheese and its flavour is carried into the cheese preparation. Herbs de Provence: Les Croisés Herbs de Provence 250g — a southern French flavour added to the Alpine format. Wild Garlic (Ail des Ours) ×17 Slices 500g: flavoured with Allium ursinum (wild garlic, literally "bear's garlic"), a foraged spring herb with a gentler flavour than cultivated garlic. Italian Flavour: Ermitage Raclette à l'Italienne 200g. Chilli: Ermitage Raclette au Piment 200g. Viande de Grisons ×17 Slices 500g: flavoured with Viande des Grisons — Swiss air-dried beef from the Graubünden (Grisons) canton, a traditional Alpine charcuterie ingredient.

Tartiflette Cheese

• Tartiflette is a Savoyard potato gratin combining sliced potatoes, lardons, onion and crème fraîche with a melting Alpine cheese placed on top to brown during the final bake. The dish was formalised and popularised in the 1980s by the Syndicat Interprofessionnel du Reblochon to increase Reblochon consumption. Fromage à tartiflette — as stocked here — is a generic semi-hard melting cheese formulated to behave like Reblochon in the oven (even melting, mild flavour, correct fat content for browning) without the AOP requirements. Ermitage Tartiflette 500g (27% MG) and Ermitage Tartiflette 250g (50% MG): the 27% and 50% versions differ in fat content in the finished product (50% MG = 50% fat in dry matter, richer and creamier result). Les Croisés Tartiflette Cheese 500g and Richesmonts Tartiflette 450g: further ready-to-use tartiflette cheeses in their standard formats.

Fondue and Alpine AOP Cheeses

• Les Croisés Fondue 3 Fromages 400g and Mini Fondue 150g: ready-to-heat fondue preparations combining three French cheeses — Emmental, Comté and a third variety — with white wine. Fondue savoyarde traditionally uses Comté, Beaufort and Emmental with dry white wine (Apremont or Chignin from Savoie) and kirsch. Richesmonts Fondue Savoyarde 150g and Savoyard Fondue 450g: Richesmonts' fondue preparations in single-serve and family formats. Président Fondue 3 Fromages 600g: a larger family-format fondue from the Président/Lactalis range.
• Nos Régions Reblochon de Savoie AOP 450g and Reblochon AOP 240g: Reblochon is a soft pressed uncooked washed-rind cheese from the Haute-Savoie, made from raw cow's milk and matured for a minimum of two weeks. The name derives from the Savoyard dialect term reblochi — "to milk again" — referring to a practice of concealing a second milking from landlords who levied charges based on milk yield; the richer second-milking cream made a distinctive, fattier cheese. Reblochon carries an AOP designation restricted to the Haute-Savoie area and uses traditional wooden boards in the maturation. Nos Régions Mini Mont d'Or AOP 400g: Mont d'Or (Vacherin Mont-d'Or) is a soft-ripened PDO cheese from Franche-Comté and the Swiss Jura, made from raw cow's milk and sold in a distinctive spruce box — the spruce resin contributes a subtle forest-wood note to the cheese. Produced only from September to May (a seasonal cheese linked to the Alpine cattle calendar). It is traditionally served baked in its box (with white wine poured over the top) or cold.

For the Richesmonts and RichesMonts brand range, see Richemonts. For sliced and portioned cheeses, see Sliced Cheese. For Président dairy products, see Président.

Raclette Cheese FAQs

What equipment is needed for a raclette dinner?

The most common domestic approach uses a tabletop electric raclette machine with individual non-stick mini-pans (coupelles) — each guest loads their pan with raclette slices and slides it under the heating element. While the cheese melts (typically 3–5 minutes depending on the element), guests eat the previous portion over potatoes, charcuterie and pickles. Sliced raclette (the format sold in most of the products here) is suited to the coupelle machine. A raclette wheel (such as the Maison du Fromage 2.3kg) requires a vertical-wheel scraper machine that holds the half-wheel against a heating element and scrapes the molten surface directly onto the plate — the traditional Valais style. For fondue, a caquelon (cast iron or ceramic fondue pot) with a stand and burner is used.

What is the difference between Reblochon AOP and fromage à tartiflette?

Reblochon de Savoie AOP is a raw milk pressed soft cheese produced in a defined zone of the Haute-Savoie, matured on spruce boards for at least two weeks, and regulated under a strict appellation. It has a washed, orange-pink rind and a mild, creamy, nutty flavour. Fromage à tartiflette is a generic commercial category — any semi-hard pressed cheese made to melt in the same way as Reblochon in a tartiflette. It is not subject to geographic or production rules, may be made from pasteurised milk from any region, and varies widely in fat content (27–50% MG). In practice, fromage à tartiflette is cheaper and more consistent for cooking use, while Reblochon AOP provides a richer, more complex flavour and is used both for cooking and for the cheese course.