Bregenzerwald Cheese Route

The Cheese Route is not a road in the conventional sense of the word but an association of experts from all kinds of disciplines who have created a network of interesting cheese-related destinations in the whole of the Bregenzerwald. Throughout the year, the members of the association invite you to sample the locally produced cheese and reveal the secrets of cheese production.

In this, its comprehensive form the Cheese Route is probably unique in the world. The project was conceived as part of an EU development programme for rural regions (LEADER II). What makes it so unusual is the involvement of so many different occupational groups.

Cheese Route establishments are among the best in the region with regard to cheese production and are considered local attractions. Suppliers have to meet stringent quality standards in order to become members of the Cheese Route association. The stops along the Cheese Route are all signposted in the same way.

Selected stops along the Cheese Route in the Bregenzerwald:
Here you’ll discover how cheese is made from milk, how cheese tastes as well as all the things which can be made with cheese.

Try your hand at alpine cheese making
Innovative farmer Ingo Metzler and his family in Egg have been making whey-based cosmetics and drinks for years. To house his expanding operations Metzler has built an architecturally stunning new structure and set up the first alpine dairy school in Vorarlberg. Each participant uses a traditional dairy boiler to make a ready-to-eat cheese according to a traditional recipe. The entire process takes about four hours. Obviously, nascent alpine dairy farmers can take their self-made cheese home with them, receive an alpine dairy farmer certificate and even find out the holes get into the cheese.

Alpine dairies you can visit
The intensively fragrant art of cheese-making can be experienced close up in the little mountain cheese dairy in Schoppernau, in the old-time dairy of Au-Rehmen and in the modern dairy at Sulzberg.

Bregenzerwald Cheese Cellar
If you think a cheese cellar is part of a building featuring traditional alpine architecture then you’re in for a surprise: In the Bregenzerwald people felt committed to the modern style of Vorarlberg architecture so a simple, monolithic structure made of fairfaced concrete and based on the plans of the architect Oskar Leo Kaufmann was built at the entrance to Lingenau. The only adornment to the outer facade consists of indentations which are lit up at night to assume the appearance of the holes you find in certain cheeses. From the presentation room visitors can peek into the huge cellar where some 33,000 wheels of alpine and mountain cheese are stored, systematically brushed with salted water and turned by robots.

Andelsbuch Cheese House
7 opening days a week make the Cheese House in the centre of Andelsbuch an ideal place for sampling cheeses and buying local specialities even at the weekends. A display of cheese-making also takes place on Sundays at 4 pm.

Nazes Hus in Mellau
The only listed building in Mellau was built several hundred years ago and has been lavishly restored in the meantime. Today it houses a delicatessen among other things. The range of produce on offer includes choice marmalades, honeys and teas.

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