Ossau-Iraty

Appearance & taste

Ossau-Iraty is cylindrical with a straight or slightly bulging side. There are two sizes: 22.5 to 27 cm in diameter and 8 to 14 cm high at 3.8 to 6 kg, or 17 to 21 cm in diameter and 7 to 13 cm high at 1.8 to 3.3 kg. The natural rind is formed by a living microflora; it is hard, several millimetres thick, feels dry to slightly moist without being sticky, and is orange-yellow to grey.

Depending on its age, the paste is ivory-white to amber-cream, smooth, compact and tender, with a creamy to firm texture, and may have a few small holes. The cheese contains at least 50 % fat in dry matter. The specification describes the smell as delicate, sometimes reminiscent of flowers or fruit, and the flavour as balanced, tangy and full, intense and slightly salty, often with a nutty-fruity aroma.

Each cheese is marked with an embossing or a casein mark with a sheep’s head; the marks for dairy cheese and farmhouse cheese are different. Cheeses from the summer pasture are specially marked.

Production

The milk comes only from sheep of the Basco-Béarnaise, Manech Tête Noire and Manech Tête Rousse breeds. The sheep are on pasture for at least 240 days a year, and their feed comes mainly from the area: feed from outside is limited to an average of 280 kg of dry matter per sheep per year, concentrates to 800 g a day and 150 kg a year. Silage has been prohibited since February 2018; genetically modified feed and crops are prohibited too. A flock yields on average at most 300 litres of milk per sheep per year. Milking takes place on at most 265 days; milking is prohibited in September and October.

The cheese is made from the non-standardised milk with rennet, lightly pressed but not cooked, salted and ripened. The producers turn and brush the wheels and do without any antifungal agent, so that various floras form on the surface. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area. Only cheeses milked at the shepherd’s hut (cayolar, etxola or cuyala) and made from the day’s raw milk bear the term “summer pasture”; the sheep are fed there on pasture, and only certain cereal grains and minerals are permitted as a supplement.

Origin & history

The area covers the mountains and foothills of the Basque Country and Béarn. The oceanic climate regularly brings a lot of rain, 1,200 to 1,800 mm a year, with small temperature swings; hills and low to medium-high mountains have led agriculture to mostly extensive livestock farming. The local sheep breeds withstand the rain with their woolly fleece, graze almost all year and give milk only in winter, spring and early summer. Three quarters of the flocks are kept in transhumance; most spend the summer on the mountain pastures.

Sheep’s cheese has been made in the western Pyrenees at least since the Middle Ages, as shown by leases from the 14th and notarial deeds from the early 15th century. Because the way from the high summer pastures down to the valley was difficult, the shepherds early on made the milk into cheese on the spot. A wheel of several kilograms with a pressed paste and a hard rind was easy to transport and store and gave families a protein-rich food all year. The long ripening has remained, even though transport is easier today.