A Comté cheese tour in the French Jura: dairies, cellars and tastings

Comté is made in the morning, from the evening and morning milkings. Many fruitières have a shop, and some a window onto the workshop, where you can watch the fromager cut and stir the curd in large copper vats, then draw it off in a cloth into the moulds. Arrive early: by late morning the work is often done. Ask at the dairy the day before, because visiting times depend on each cooperative. The shop is also the place to ask the staff which age they would recommend for a first taste. Let the children pick one piece each for the evening tasting: choosing makes them far more curious about what they eat.

Young Comté leaves the dairy for the ripening cellars, where it stays at least 4 months, and around 8 on average. The most spectacular cellars are inside the Fort des Rousses, a former military fort where the affineur Juraflore ages thousands of wheels in the half-light at 8 °C. Each wheel is turned and rubbed with brine, the morge, which builds the rind. A wheel weighs about 40 kg, and it takes the milk of 20 cows, over two milkings, to make one. Bring a jumper, even in August, and sensible shoes for the stone floors and stairs of the old fort. Jura Tourisme gives the cellar visit about 1 hr 30 min and asks you to book, as places are limited. Guided tours take you past spruce shelves stacked to the ceiling and end with a tasting; the smell alone tells children they are somewhere special.

In Poligny, the Comté interprofessional body runs the Maison du Comté, an interpretation centre about the cheese, its landscapes and its rules. It is the place to understand, before or after the dairy, why Comté tastes so different from one wheel to the next: Jura Tourisme explains that the area, the season, the cheesemaker’s hand and the cellar all leave their mark. The drive takes about 45 min from the house (a drive time we worked out in October 2026), so it fits well with a morning dairy visit on the same day.

Buy two or three pieces of different ages from the same dairy shop: a young one, a medium-aged one and a well-aged one. Taste them in that order, at room temperature, and notice how the texture and the flavour change as the cheese ages. Children often prefer the youngest; adults are usually surprised by the oldest. Write down your favourites, and buy more of them before you leave. Wrapped and kept cool for the drive home, a piece bought at the dairy makes a better souvenir than anything from a gift shop.

Comté has neighbours worth tasting. Ask in any dairy shop which other local cheeses they sell. Morbier hides a thin black line of vegetable charcoal through the middle; Bleu de Gex is a blue cheese from the Haut-Jura, first made by monks, as the story goes. Mont d’Or, girdled with spruce bark and sold in a spruce box, is a seasonal cheese, found from autumn to spring. Opening the week with a small cheese board helps you decide which dairy to visit. Between dairy days, Foncine-le-Bas with children lists what the village offers on foot.

Jura 835 has room for 6 to 8 guests in 3 bedrooms on one level, and a dining table for long tasting evenings. The Fort des Rousses is about 30 min away. Poligny and Les Rousses lie in different directions from the house, so give each its own day. Pair a dairy at dawn with Poligny (45 min), and keep the fort (30 min) for another day. If you only have one cheese day, choose the fort to see the wheels ageing, or Poligny to have the whole story explained. We let the house to one family or group at a time, preferably by the week, from €4,200. Tell us your dates and we will suggest a route that mixes dairies, cellars and walks, as in our family holiday guide. For waterfalls on the same trip, see our guide to Jura waterfalls; for a morning among older giants, the dinosaur footprints at Loulle.