Three Roqueforts: Vieux Berger (top left), Gabriel Coulet (bottom left) and Carles (right)
We carry a number of AOC cheeses here at Formaggio Kitchen: Époisses, Langres, Comté and Fourme d’Ambert, to name a few. As a result (and not surprisingly), one of the questions that we often field on the cheese counter is what the term AOC actually tells us about a given cheese.
AOC stands for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (translating to: Controlled Name of Origin) and is a designation of process and provenance that is used in France. There are equivalents of the AOC program in other countries – in Italy it is called DOC (Denominazione d’Origine Controllata) or DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta)*, in Spain it is called DO (Denominacion de Origen) and, in the EU as a whole, the designation is PDO** (Protected Designation of Origin). (more…)
