Pecorino del Monte Poro

Appearance & taste

Pecorino del Monte Poro is round with a flat top and bottom, 6 to 40 cm in diameter, 3 to 20 cm high and weighing 300 g to 10 kg. The rind is hard and wrinkled, golden yellow on the young cheese and a more or less dark nut brown on the semi-mature and mature cheese; if it is rubbed with peperoncino and extra virgin olive oil, it turns reddish brown. The paste is compact, sometimes with a few irregularly distributed holes, white and soft in the young cheese, a more or less deep straw yellow and increasingly firm in older cheese. The cheese contains more than 45 % fat in dry matter.

The specification describes the taste as fragrant, with hints of wild flowers, Mediterranean maquis and hay, full-bodied and pleasantly nutty. With ripening these qualities become more intense, and the mature cheese gains a pronounced sharpness and spiciness.

The cheese is sold in three varieties: “young” after 20 to 60 days, “semi-mature” after 61 days to 6 months and “mature” after 6 to 24 months. The variety is stated on the label.

Production

The sheep are kept semi-wild and come into the shed only at night. They eat plants typical of Monte Poro, fresh in summer and as hay in winter. Only in years of drought or very hard winters may up to 30 % of the feed be hay from outside the area. During lactation at most 15 % may be supplemented with cereals, pulses, mineral salts and vitamins, also from outside, because the mountainous area does not produce enough of them. Genetically modified feed is prohibited.

Raw whole sheep’s milk from two milkings, from the previous evening and the morning, is processed without heat treatment. It is curdled with rennet from the abomasum of exclusively milk-fed lambs or kids. Processing temperatures are low, at 32 to 38 °C, so that the aromas are preserved. According to the specification, individual steps such as curdling, moulding and ripening are still done by hand. Keeping the sheep, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area comprises 27 municipalities of Monte Poro in the province of Vibo Valentia, including Tropea, Pizzo Calabro, Nicotera and Vibo Valentia. It lies between the Gulf of Lamezia and the plain of Gioia Tauro, bounded by the Angitola plain to the north, the Rosarno plain to the south and the ridge of the Serre to the west. Native plants make up at least 70 % of the diet of the grazing sheep. On the rough, steep terrain of the plateau grows dense maquis with broom, myrtle, wild olive, mastic tree and hawthorn. The aromatic compounds of these herbs are fat-soluble and, according to the specification, pass through the milk into the cheese.

Old writings already name the cheese together with its area of origin, from “De antiquitate et situ Calabriae” (1571) by the humanist Gabriele Barrio of Vibo Valentia to a work on agriculture in Calabria from 1770 by the economist Domenico Grimaldi. A work from 1985 describes pecorino and ricotta from Monte Poro as white, soft and savoury, thanks to the pastures on which a lot of oregano also grows.