The Art of Cheese Making
The 9 DOP
Over the centuries, the cheesemakers have been able to add all their creativity to traditional techniques, creating a cluster of products – crescenza, quartirolo, robiola, taleggio, gorgonzola, salva, strachítunt, stracchino all’antica – with very different sensory characteristics.
They have become masters in the production of hard and semi-hard alpine fat cheese, with long or very long ripening times. If stracchino cheese represents winter production, full-fat cheese represents the typical and most widespread alpine cheese production, which only here is perfected through special ageing due to the addition of goatmilk.
Further ageing is adopted thanks to the karstic nature of the Orobic caves; or perforated wooden buckets (garocc’) are still adopted in the drying process for maschérpa (fatty ricotta).
A great variety that Bergamo can boast with its 9 PDOs.
Taleggio DOP
Whole cow milk , raw or pasteurized, rennet– acid coagulation, raw dough, soft, fatty, washed crust, seasoned for a minimum of 35 days.
Salva Cremasco DOP
Cow milk cheese, raw whole milk or pasteurized, rennet-acid coagulation, soft raw dough with washed crust and long seasoning, minimum 75 days.
Quartirolo Lombardo DOP
Cow milk cheese, whole or semi skimmed, raw or thermized from two or more milkings, rennet-acid coagulation, raw soft dough, fatty, fresh seasoned for a minimum of 5 days, and 30 for the seasoned type.
Strachítunt DOP
Produced with whole raw cow milk from two milkings, rennet-acid coagulation, of two raw doughs, soft, fatty, blue cheese, seasoned minimum 75 days.
Formai de mut dell’Alta Valle Brembana DOP
Cheese made from whole raw cow milk, rennet-acid coagulation, raw curd, semi hard, fatty, seasoned for a minimum of 45 days. Cheeses produced in the summer mountain pastures have a blue label, while the others have a pink one.
Bitto DOP
Made from whole raw cow milk to which a maximum of 10% raw goat milk may be added, rennet coagulation, cooked dough, semi hard or hard if very seasoned, rated fatty, minimum seasoning of 70 days, but can reach 10 years.
Grana Padano DOP
Made from whole raw cow milk to which a maximum of 10% raw goat milk may be added, rennet coagulation, cooked dough, semi hard or hard if very seasoned, rated fatty, minimum seasoning of 70 days, but can reach 10 years.
Gorgonzola DOP
Whole cow milk cheese, pasteurized, rennet coagulation, raw dough, soft, fatty, blue, can be sweet or spicy, with a seasoning of a minimum 50 to 80 days according to the size of the form and degree of spiciness one wishes to obtain.
Provolone Valpadana DOP
Obtained from whole raw cow milk (either spicy-thermized or sweet-pasteurized), spun dough, semi-hard, semi-cooked, fatty. Can be: sweet, coagulated with veal rennet and with a minimum seasoning ranging from 10 to 20 days but no longer than 2-3 months; spicy, coagulated with rennet in kid (goat) or lamb dough and with seasoning ranging from 90 days to 8 months according to the weight of the cheese. In either case, it can be smoked.
