Abbaye de Belloc comes from the Benedictine monks at the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Belloc in the French Basque country, where the recipe has been refined for centuries on milk from local red-nosed Manech ewes. This is a semi-hard sheep's milk cheese, pressed into a flat wheel and aged four to ten months under a natural, crusty rind that develops patches of red, orange, and yellow with tiny craters across the surface. The paste cuts firm and silky, dense the way a real Basque sheep cheese should be, with a faint lanolin aroma coming off the rind. On the palate it opens with toasted hazelnut and brown butter, then settles into a long, sweet finish that tastes almost like burnt caramel, the kind of note that sticks around well after the bite. It's nutty and rich without being aggressive, and the monastic recipe gives it a quiet confidence that you don't see in a lot of modern sheep cheeses.
