Testun alla Paglia

The practice of making cheese using milk from more than one type of animal is common on the continent, but not something seen often in the UK.

In remote mountain areas, goats and sheep graze the steep and rocky hillsides, and cows tend to be kept on flatter, more gently rolling pastures, lower down in hills. In order for the remote mountain dairies to make cheese all year round, milk from high yielding cows is mixed with the milk from either goats or sheep, depending on which is available at the time.

From the beginning of spring to midsummer, cheese makers in the hills above the Piedmont town of Cuneo blend new season sheep's milk – sweet and fatty, with the year-round supply of cow's milk. One of the cheeses made is the Testun alla Paglia, a semi-soft, pressed “Toma”.

Testun alla Paglia

The rind of this artisanal cheese is rubbed in the herbage specific to the region ("Paglia" translates to "hay"), directly imparting the aromas, flavour and essence of the hills to the cheese. As the cheese ripens, the scent of the flower-rich hay develops through the cheese, giving an intense complexity and diversity of flavours.

To begin with, the cheese has clean, milky flavours, soon building acidity and mouthwatering fruitiness, with layers of buttery richness and a fair level of salt.

The cheese remains on the palate long after swallowing, with the lingering flavour of sheep's milk - a distinct almond-like quality.

This cheese is robust and bold, but balanced, with great subtlety and nuance. 

A product which truly portrays its origins.

The hay-coated rind of the Testun alla Paglia.

Beaufort d'alpage

One of my favourite cheeses of all comes from the high Alpine region of the Massif Beaufortin, where the steep-sided mountains reach 3000m, with deep, lush valleys below. Beaufort AOC is a cheese which production is limited to 3 of the valleys in this remote region – Val du Beaufortin, Val du Tarentaise, and the Val du Maurienne. Here, the mountain sides are snow covered for at least 6 months of the year, but as the snow recedes in mid-spring, the “alpage” (or high mountain grazing pastures) comes to life, with hundreds of rare and indigenous grasses and flowers growing and blooming. Flowers such as gentians, saxifrage and orchids grow here on the light, limestone soils. This unique cocktail of clean, unadulterated pasture, untouched by any cultivation, fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides, along with pure air mountain air creates an environment perfect for the production of this very special cheese. This environment is grazed for 100 day of the year, from June to September, by the two local breeds of cattle, the Tarentaise and the Abondance, which are grazed in large herds of up to 200 animals. Coming from the region, these breeds are hardy, and adapted to the steep inclines of the hills and the temperature fluctuations between night and day. Milking takes place in small, mobile milking parlours, with the fresh milk being pumped directly from the udder into churns, before being taken down the mountain to the dairy.

There are 3 types of Beaufort: Beaufort d’Alpage, made using this special summer mountain milk, Beaufort d'été, made using summer milk produced further down mountain, and Beaufort d’hiver, made during winter months, when the cattle are kept inside and fed on hay.

In large copper cauldrons, the milk is heated to 32ᵒC and renneted using a solution made from strips of dried calves stomach. The digestive enzyme, rennin is released into the solution, along with lactic ferments to ripen the milk. After coagulation, the curd is repeatedly cut, stirred, and heated to 53-54ᵒC. The curds are cut to the size of rice grains, and the heating and stirring encourages syneresis, the expulsion of whey. After this cooking process, the thousands of tiny curds are left to settle under the whey, and begin to form a solid mass at the bottom of the cauldron. The cheese maker removes them by slipping a large square cloth below the curds, tying the four corners of the cloth together, and hoisting the mass out from the whey and into a mould for pressing.

The rind of Beaufort is concave around the edge as a result of the mould being tightened around the cheese before a 24 hour pressing, during which time the cheese is turned and the mould re-tightened.

Now the cheese is ready for brining, and its maturation process begins.

This week I have been eating a delicious Beaufort d’Alpage, one of the first of the season having been made in early June with the very first alpine milk of the year. It is young, milky, honey-sweet and floral, with a soft and buttery texture, and very delicious.

Beaufort is wonderful at all ages, and if the cheese were to have been kept another 6-12 months, the flavours would become richer, meaty, more complex, with a firmer texture and perhaps the satisfying grainy bite an old cheese develops.