Big cheese
Cheese maker Jacques Murith leans over a glowing vat of whey as he prepares serac, a soft, ricotta-like cheese.
For five generations his family has worked in this picturesque corner of Switzerland to also produce another, more famous dairy product - Gruyere. The firm and slightly nutty-flavoured cheese is both tricky and time-consuming to make, and from mid-May to mid-October the Muriths devote almost all their time to the process.
Cows graze among dandelions at the beginning of the cheese-making season.
Cheese maker and farmer Jacques Murith walks with his cows on the very last day of the season.
During the Gruyere-making process, Murith uses a special implement to split the curd into grains.
He leans over a vat as he splits the curds.
Fire warms the milk in a huge copper cauldron.
Murith tastes the whey before removing the grains.
Murith and his son Alexandre remove the grain from the whey as they mould a wheel of cheese.
Murith pushes cheese into a round mould.
He tests the texture of the newly-made cheese with his fingertips.
His son Alexandre checks fresh wheels of cheese.
An identification number is stamped onto the side of one of the products.
Fresh wheels of cheese are transported through the mountains to a ripening cellar.
Jacques Murith (right) poses in traditional bredzon costume with his sons Pierre (2nd right) Alexandre (3rd right) and friends on the day marking the end of the cheese-making season.
