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maison d’hôtes

La Grange

15140 salers

SALERS, A VILLAGE, A CHEESE, A COW…

A must! A true architectural gem classified among « the Most Beautiful Villages of France » …

~ The village:

Salers (pronounced [salɛʁ]) (Salèrn en occitan) is a French village located in the Cantal department (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region). The residents of Salers are today called the Sagranières/ Sagraniers.
Do not get trapped, the « S » at the end of Salers is not pronounced! 🙂

Salers; it is a village, a cheese, a breed (type) of cow and an alcohol made from Gentian.

Salers is situated at the western end of the Cantal volcanic region, on the edge of a plateau at an altitude of about 900 m. The town was built around a castle on a basaltic hill overlooking the Maronne valley. At this point, the Maronne is not far from its confluence with the Aspre, these two valleys giving access from the west to the Puy Violent and the whole chain of the Puys Cantaliens.

It is the medieval and mountainous city, carved out of lava, in the heart of the Upper Country, and which for a thousand years has kept watch over our mountains and our puys Sentinelle » (Arsène Vernemouze).

~ The cheese:

Salers is a raw cow’s milk cheese with uncooked pressed dough from the Cantal department. The name «salers» has been protected by the AOC labels since 1979 and AOP since 1996.

In 2016, the know-how related to the production of salers was included in the inventory of French intangible heritage by the Ministry of Culture.

~ The Cow

Salers is a French cow breed characterized by its brown colour.

In the time of ancient Rome, we know that Jupiter demanded that the young bulls that were sacrificed to him be of red dress…

Present for a long time in the mountains of Cantal, it is not yet known whether its origin is indigenous (it would come from the aurochs that our Magdalenian ancestors represented on the walls of the caves of Quercy) or, on the contrary, allochthonous, arrived with the Germanic peoples or brought back from Spain with the Iberian wagons. Similar strains are now found in Spain and Great Britain. It belongs to the red branch…

If this story about the cow Salers intrigues you, you are passionate, a museum is entirely dedicated to it, it is the house of the Salers:
https://www.maisondelasalers.fr

~ The liquor:

Salers is a gentian liquor from the Massif Central, distilled in Turenne (Corrèze) with Auvergne yellow gentian.

The name on the labels is “Salers Gentiane”, but the common name is “Salers”.

It is one of the so-called bitter liquor.

* (some sources: Wikipedia / Auvergne-destination)