In 1962 an order of Orthodox Benedictine monks decided to settle in the tiny hamlet of la Dalmerie, in the Languedoc Roussillon, then home to 6 other farming families whose activities were divided between wine production or farming sheep for the production of Roquefort.  In 1965 their monastery was built.  It sits in the valley of Monts d’Orb in the National Park of Haut Languedoc in a natural amphitheatre of mountains facing towards the Mediterranean Sea across the wine growing plain of lower Languedoc.  A suitable area for monastic reflection, it is a peaceful setting with minimal interference of human activity but with the sounds of sheep bells from the pasture, sounds of the deep chants from monastic services all set to a background of cicadas.

We’re just past midsummer, the height of the goats and sheeps cheese season and it is natural to take stock of how this year’s season has gone so far. 

While seasonality has been bred out of most cows so that they will milk and calve at any time of the year (although there are still exceptions like Salers cows), goats and sheep are less commonly deseasoned.  For smaller herds it isn’t viable, and their cheeses tend to disappear from our counters sometime in November.