Murazzano

Appearance & taste

Murazzano is cylindrical, with a flat top and bottom and a slightly raised edge, about 10 to 15 cm in diameter and 3 to 4 cm high; it weighs 250 to 400 g. The fresh cheese has no rind: its surface is milky white, sometimes with a thin straw-yellow skin, and turns a darker straw yellow during ripening. The paste is soft, slightly firm and fine-grained, sometimes with a few holes. With ripening its colour changes from milky white to straw yellow, and because it loses moisture it becomes increasingly firm, eventually semi-hard or hard. Colourings and flavourings are not used.

The specification describes the taste as delicate and subtly fragrant, with a pleasant flavour reminiscent of sheep’s milk. When young the cheese shows notes of the plants the animals eat. With longer ripening, smell and taste become more intense; the cheese can develop a soft, thin rind and a firmer, darker paste, with notes that can be reminiscent of sheepskin. Pure sheep’s milk cheese contains at least 50 % fat in dry matter, cheese made from mixed milk at least 47 %.

The logo shows a stylised large “M” on the flat side of a wheel from which a wedge has been cut, in blue or black on white. Cheese made only from sheep’s milk may bear the statement “Solo latte di pecora delle Langhe” (only from the milk of Delle Langhe sheep).

Production

At least 70 % of the dry matter in the animals’ annual ration is green or preserved fodder, at most 30 % supplementary or concentrated feed; at least 80 % of the feed comes from the area. When the season allows, the animals graze, usually from April to October; otherwise they are given mainly hay from the area.

Milk from two or more milkings is used. It may be heat-treated and inoculated with milk enzymes or natural starter cultures, and is curdled with liquid calf rennet. The curd is broken twice and quickly filled into the small moulds so that the whey drains off fast; the cheese is then turned frequently and salted. It ripens for at least 4 and at most 90 days. Up to 15 months are only allowed in the traditional “Burnie”, airtight glass jars into which the cheese is put after at least 20 days of ripening and to which nothing is added. Animal husbandry, milk production, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area lies in the Alta Langa, a hilly region between the lower Langhe, the Ligurian Apennines, the Monferrato and the plain of Cuneo, on unirrigated medium-high and high hills. Because, according to the specification, there were no geological upheavals there, plants from the European lowlands, the Mediterranean, Central and Southern Europe and the Atlantic region grow side by side. Their aromas pass via the milk into the cheese.

Delle Langhe sheep are a native breed that has been linked with the Alta Langa for centuries; according to the specification, the first written mention is in the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder. The hardy, medium-sized sheep give good milk even in difficult conditions. For a long time they were the only livelihood of rural families, because the remote, unproductive area was hardly suitable for other livestock farming. Sheep farming, cheesemaking and land management are still closely linked there today.