Aromes au Gene de Marc is not a single cheese with a recipe of its own. It is a way of finishing other people's cheeses.
Small young discs are buried in barrels of fermenting grape marc for a month or two, and what comes out is a different animal.
So the thing you buy under this name depends entirely on what went into the barrel, which is the first thing worth knowing about it.
The name is not fixed either. The same cheese is sold as Arome de Lyon and as arome lyonnais, and a shop may use any of the three.
In This Article
What Goes Into the Barrel?
The barrel takes cheeses that are still blank, because the marc is going to do the work that ageing would otherwise have done. That means small young discs which have not yet built much character of their own.
The usual candidates are Saint-Marcellin, Rigotte, Picodon and Pelardon, all small discs from the same corner of France.
Some of those are cow's milk and some are made from goat milk, so the animal behind your piece is not fixed by the name on the label.
A cheesemonger selling it should be able to tell you which base was used. If they cannot, you are buying a surprise rather than a cheese.
What Actually Happens in the Barrel?
Marc is the residue of winemaking: the skins, pips and stalks left behind in the press once the juice has gone.
It is still alive when it comes out, and it keeps fermenting in the barrel, which is the entire point of using it.
The cheeses sit buried in that for one to two months, taking up alcohol and yeast from the material packed around them.
Timing follows the harvest rather than a calendar. This is a cheese that appears in the months after the vintage and then runs out.
Marc is not the only medium. The same tradition also matures these cheeses in white wine, which is why one of the names attached to them is arome au vin blanc, and that version comes out gentler and less bitter.
The practice is an old Lyonnais habit and it survives in Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, where small dairies and vineyards sit close enough together for the marc to be worth carting.
It began as thrift rather than gastronomy. Marc was waste that a winemaker had to shift anyway, and a barrel of it kept cheeses cool, dark and covered through a season with no cellar space to spare.
The flavour was a by-product that people came to want. That order matters, because it explains why the result is bitter and yeasty rather than pretty.
This is a finishing method rather than a single cheese, so two examples from two makers can differ more than you expect. Ask what went into the barrel.
What Does It Taste Like?
People expect this cheese to taste of wine and it does not, which is the single most common disappointment attached to it. What comes through is strong and bittersweet rather than fruity.
The dominant note is yeast, not wine, because what the cheese has been sitting in is fermenting waste rather than a finished drink.
The smell arrives well before the taste, and it is the smell of a fermenting must. That is a working-cellar smell rather than a fruit-bowl one.
Texture depends on how long it has been out of the barrel. A young disc is creamy and moist, and an older one goes flaky and hard right through.
The rind carries almost all of the marc character. The paste underneath still tastes recognisably of whichever cheese went in.
How Should You Serve It?
Serving it is mostly a matter of not undoing the maceration, since everything the barrel added is sitting on the outside of a very small cheese. One disc is a portion at 80 to 150g, so put it out whole rather than cutting from it.
Leave the marc fragments on the crust. Brushing them off removes the reason you bought it.
What goes beside it should be plain and structured rather than sweet, because the crust is already carrying a great deal of flavour on its own.
| Pairing | Type | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Arome + Sancerre blanc | Wine | Androuet's first suggestion. Sauvignon acidity cuts the fat and stands up to the fermented note without adding sugar. |
| Arome + Saint-Joseph | Wine | A northern Rhone red with structure rather than jam. Weight without sweetness is the requirement here. |
| Arome + Vacqueyras | Wine | The fuller of the recommended reds. Best with an older, drier disc that has gone flaky. |
| Arome + plain baguette | Bread | Crust is the right texture against a paste this dense. Nothing seeded and nothing sweet. |
It does not belong in the middle of a mixed board. Give it the end position and its own plate, because the smell travels.
How Do You Pick One and How Long Does It Keep?
There is no producer name to look for and no protected mark, so buying well here comes down to reading the cheese itself. Look at the crust before anything else: it should be damp and stained, with marc still attached rather than brushed clean.
Colour runs anywhere from brown through grey to purple depending on the grapes, so none of those is a fault on its own.
Press the disc gently. A creamy one gives all over, and a firmer one that resists has been out of the barrel longer and will eat drier and flakier.
Neither state is a fault, so buy for the texture you want rather than assuming the soft one is fresher.
Keep it wrapped in waxed paper inside a closed box, because this is a cheese that will scent a whole fridge in a day.
Eat it within a week or so. The paste keeps drying and the bitterness keeps building, and past a certain point the marc character stops being interesting.
Who Is This Cheese For?
This is worth being blunt about, because it is an expensive thing to buy once and never finish. It suits someone who already likes strong cheese and has run out of new ones to try.
It makes a difficult first purchase. The smell is confrontational, the format is unfamiliar, and the bitterness is not something most cheeses ask you to enjoy.
If you like a washed rind and find it too polite, this is the direction to go next.
If you were hoping the grape skins would make it taste of wine, buy something else. That is not what the barrel does.
For a cheese where wine really is the flavour, the Veneto blue steeped in passito does what people expect this one to do.
For the washed-rind character underneath the marc, the Burgundy benchmark is the reference the region is actually known for.
SOURCES & REFERENCES
Aromes au Gene de Marc FAQ
Two things the barrel raises.
The cheese takes up some from the fermenting marc around it, but not in a quantity anyone would register as alcohol. What you taste is the yeast and the fermentation rather than a spirit.
Yes, and they are part of the point. A month or two in the barrel leaves them soft, and they carry most of what the maceration added.
