An alpine winter feast: cheese, wine and a side dish of snowshoeing in France | Alps holidays

The unmistakable whiff of cow – pungent, but not unpleasant – hit me as soon as I arrived at Ferme Dunoyer above the Haute-Savoie village of Samoëns. Rather than put me off, the scent heightened my appetite for the cheese blowout that was to come.

Sat at a wooden communal table inside the pine-walled restaurant run by the farm’s owner, Blandine Dunoyer, I waited for the bonanza of mountain comfort food: fondue savoyarde, tartiflette, raclette, then diots (smoked pork sausages) with polenta. Somehow, I found room for potée savoyarde, a rib-sticking dish of slow-cooked pork shoulder, cabbage and potatoes, then a round of top-notch alpine cheese, reblochon and tomme de savoie, before a creamy blueberry dessert.

On the other side of the restaurant wall, a large window revealed the barn where Blandine’s 84 cows are kept. On our side, with wine and an aperitif, the meal came to €33 each. It was a reminder that not everything in Samoëns revolves around skiing, despite being part of Grand Massif, the fourth largest ski domain in the French Alps. Agriculture and wine production are still very much at the forefront of this pretty, medieval village about 38 miles (60km) east of Geneva, and the only French ski resort to be classified as a “national monument”.

There certainly is a sense of timelessness about Samoëns when you stand in Place du Gros Tilleul in front of the giant lime tree (the eponymous Gros Tilleul) which has been there since 1438. Its covered market, first established on a Wednesday in 1355, has kept the same weekly date since then. Opposite is the imposing 16th-century Our Lady of Assumption church, whose stonemasons took their craft around Europe and as far as Louisiana, developing a reputation for being among the best. You can see their work among the old stone houses decked with flowers along the narrow lanes in the old heart of the village.

With the Grand Massif’s 165 miles of pistes off limits to me, thanks to a ski injury, I was free to explore the food and drink side of Samoëns more thoroughly. I had the excellent fortune to be here during the Vignerons font du ski, a wine festival held every January in which producers from around France join local winemakers to offer tastings to anyone who pays…