Käsestrasse Bregenzerwald

The Käsestraße Bregenzerwald (Cheese Street of the Bregenz Forest) is a non-profit organization and route which links cheese-producing businesses of the Bregenz Forest in Austria. The organization is a group of Bregenzerwald farmers, craftsmen and tradesmen. All members and partners of the Käsestrasse contribute to preserving Bregenzerwald's agriculture, the alpine transhumance and its domestic products.[1]

Regional cheese cellar in Lingenau, in the Bregenz Forest along the cheese route.

History

The Käsestraße Bregenzerwald as an organization exists since 1998 and includes various roads of the Bregenzer forest. The organization has more than 200 members (2017) and there are all sorts of farmers: farms with farmyards, village farms, Alpine farms. It is a non-profit association promoting Bregenzerwald's cheese culture. The aim is to maintain and promote the regional value, to preserve the regional small structures and to shape the Bregenzerwald region as a cheese region.[1]

The high value and importance of cheese origins in the regional history of people. Milk and dairy products, especially the so-called mountain cheeses (Bergkäse) produced on the alpine pastures and village dairies, were the basic food for the whole year of the Walser population for centuries. The cheese soon became an important export product, thus further developing its value for the economy.[2]

For producing the dairy-products, the local farmers drove livestock between the valleys in winter, the medium-high pastures in spring and high-pastures in summer. The milk obtained, separated from cow, goat and sheep milk (mainly cow raw milk), is transported down the road by means of a transport cableway or handcart or car, where a milk tank takes up the milk. The tanks are then brought to a cheese factory (today near Hittisau), where cheese production starts.

This so-called alpine transhumance (also known as "Maiensäß") shaped much of the landscape in the Alps and is still practiced today. Farms, farmers huts and alpine pastures are part of the typical scenery in Vorarlberg. The life of local people was heavily influenced by this form of seasonal migration and they developed traditional Alpine culture, such as Yodel, Alphorn or Schwingen.[3]

Course
The longest cheese-table in the world (in the Guinness book of the records about 500m) was covered on 27.09.2008 to the 10th anniversary of the Käsestrasse Bregenzerwald in Andelsbuch for about 2000 guests.

The Käsestraße Bregenzerwald starts in Bregenz and runs along the Bregenzerwaldstraße L 200 through all the villages and the connected Alps. Along this street, there are many farmers, dairy-producers, shops and cheese-producers that can be visited.

The area was also integrated with its cheese varieties in 2005 as a region "Bregenzerwälder Alpkäse" (Bregenzer Forest alp-cheese) and Bergkäse (mountain-cheese) in the project "Genussregion Österreich", which is an organization that promotes traditional food and food-products of Austria.[4]

References
  1. "KäseStrasse Bregenzerwald - Non-Profit-Organization". www.kaesestrasse.at (in German). Retrieved 2017-09-13.
  2. "Charakteristika der Region Vorarlberg | Region Vorarlberg". www.vorarlbergkaese.at (in German). Retrieved 2017-09-13.
  3. "History of Maisäß in the Montafon-Region (in German)" (PDF).
  4. "Bregenzerwälder Alpkäse und Bergkäse". www.genuss-region.at (in German). Archived from the original on 2013-02-08. Retrieved 2017-09-13.
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