Bonjour French Market Friends,
While the Springboks continue to pound their way successfully through the Northern Hemisphere rugby teams, some 
attention was captured by The World Cheese Awards 2025, which was held last week in Bern in Switzerland. Over 5000 cheeses from 42 countries, including camels’ milk cheese, competed in this prestigious event. 265 judges blind tasted the cheeses. 14 cheeses made it to the Super Gold. The winner was 18 months aged Le Gruyere made by Hitz Pius from the Vorderfultigen mountain cheese dairy in Switzerland. (Image credit Gabriel Monnet AFP) Hitz accepted the award with an emotional speech thanking the judges for honouring the cheesemakers’ work, creating cheese 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Note – we will be getting in 80kgs stock of Le Gruyere aged 15 months in early December- it’s not from the same producer but is a great cheese.
In 2nd place was France with the Cremeux des Aldudes aux fleurs, a creamy sheep’s milk cheese covered with flowers from artisanal cheesemakers, Etxaldia, in the Aldudes valley in the Basque region. In 6th place was another Basque region cheese Ossau-Iraty. Good news is that even if you could not make it to the Championships, we do have a great Ossau 
Iraty available at our shop. This sheep’s milk cheese has a dry crust and medium firm texture. It is subtle in flavour and pairs well with Membrillo, (the quince paste from Spain) which we also stock, and a sweet wine such as our Sauternes from Bordeaux, which I really enjoy.
We also have plenty of rich triple cream Delice in stock – if you wanted to make it look like the Cremeux des Aldudes, you could always be creative and decorate it with small edible flowers and sprinkle with some dried Herbes de Provence which we stock in tubs in the shop.
In our fresh produce this week we have a new batch of white asparagus, the season has continued longer than usual, so enjoy them while they are still available. Our fresh porcini season has just started. These porcinis grow in the SAPPI pine forests in the Eastern Cape. We received a couple of kgs last week, some are as big as my hand. They do sell out quite quickly so remember to pre order. Next stock should arrive on Wednesday, all being well.
Coming up this week in France, is the celebration of the Nouveau Beaujolais – this is an annual celebra
tion on the 3rd Thursday in November, when the first wine pressed from the 2025 harvest in Beaujolais is raced around the world. Our French Chamber of Commerce is celebrating the event in JNB on the Thursday the 20th and in Cape Town on Friday the 21st. If you have not booked for the events, you can always try some of our regular Beaujolais from Chateau de Pierreux, available in our shop. We will be catering for the Cape Town event for 200 guests–supplying platters of French cheese, sliced cold meats, mini savoury and sweet pastries. We are also supplying mini cocktail platters to a yacht and a Birthday cake to a client in Camps Bay, plus a shipment of cheese up to Windhoek. So if we look fairly busy on Thursday and Friday, that’s the reason. Do remember if you need catering for an event, do contact me for a quote.
For 
my recipe this week I am sharing an easy dish of fillet of fried salmon with a beautiful lemon and French butter sauce. The sauce is made from thin slices of fresh lemon, salted capers and basil tossed in French butter. This is quick to make and tastes great. You can accompany the dish with steamed noodles made from courgettes or a side dish of mashed potato if you want a meal with more substance.
For wine pairing I would recommend pairing with the Louis Latour Grand Ardeche Chardonnay. The IGP region of Ardeche is situated south of Burgundy, where the soil in the vineyards is clay and chalk. The expertise of the famous Burgundian winemakers and barrel makers, Louis Latour, is applied to the production of this wine. This chardonnay has been aged in medium toasted oak barrels which gives a light aroma of oak and adds more complexity to the taste, compared to chardonnay wines made in steel tanks. This wine has a lovely golden colour, it is smooth and tastes great.
I hope you are enjoying a great weekend in the warmth of our summer sun.
Regards
Suzanne and The French Market Team