Tarentaise

Tarentaise cattle from the French Alps

The Tarentaise cattle are named after the valley of their origin Vallée de la Tarentaise in the heart of the French Alps, located in the rugged Savoy region of France. The valley is named for the ancient town of Darantasia, the capital of the pre-Roman Centrones tribe. There the cattle are kept solely for dairying and for the making of Beaufort, a Gruyere-type cheese. Beaufort was already known in the time of the Romans and is named after a small rural town of the region. The varierty Beaufort d’Alpage is made with milk from Tarine (or Tarentaise) cows. Since the cows summer in the mountains and graze exclusively on natural pastures, it is said that tasters can feel the grass and flowers of the mountain when eating a piece of Beaufort!

These cattle have been an integral part of Alpine traditions seemingly forever. As early as the first written documents of our civilization, in the time of the Roman Empire, Pliny the Elder was discovering this “breed from the Alps”. He was already singing the praises of “the milking qualities of these little cows”…

The cattle are of moderate size with cows weighing on average 1,100 lbs with a height at the withers of 130-135 cm. Bulls average at 1,800 lbs and 140 -145 cm at the withers. The coat is uniformly reddish-brown with black pigmented skin, giving the cattle black hooves and a black nose. A pronounced mealy muzzle, a trademark of many European alpine breeds, is common, as are black rimmed ears and eyes, and a black switch at the end of the tail. Beyond its maternal qualities, docile temperament, disease resistance, hardiness, and productivity as dairy and beef animal, these are truly beautiful cattle.

In their native land, the cows are managed on pasture under intensive grazing management. The average production is 5,500 kilos (12,199 lbs) of milk in a 305 day lactation without feeding any concentrate. Cows are dried off in the fall and kept in the barn from October through April because of snow and the danger of avalanche. Their basic ration is hay, sometimes haylage. Most calving and breeding occur in winter.

In May the cows are turned out onto lush pastures at 2,500 feet. In June they are moved to high and extremely steep pastures at an average elevation of 8,000 feet. Daily temperatures often swing from below freezing to high above 80 degrees Farenheit. Grazing ski slopes, the cattle are so removed from any town that the herdsmen actually stay with the cows for the entire three months and make the cheese on the spot. The Tarentaise breed is a basic component of the quality of the Savoy landscape. All summer, the Tarentaise cows play an important part in maintaining the ski slopes: grass which is cropped retains the mantle of snow and limits the risk of avalanches. Tarentaise are the only cattle in Europe hardy enough to graze this region profitably. Climbing at these altitudes is what makes their remarkable natural muscling and marbling, as well as endowing the breed with a very robust cardiovascular system.

This is an extremely hardy and adaptable breed, naturally resistant to disease, and an easy keeper.