Queijo Serpa

Appearance & taste

Queijo Serpa is a flat, regular cylindrical disc without clear edges, bulging at the sides and slightly domed on top. It weighs 200 g to 2.5 kg, with a diameter of 10 to 30 cm and a height of 3 to 8 cm. The rind is thin, slightly rough, pliable and pale straw-yellow. The paste is close, butter-like and creamy, with few or no holes, and deforms slightly when cut. It is yellowish-white or straw-yellow; the colour develops on contact with air. The specification describes the taste as mild, clean and possibly slightly sharp, and the smell as mild to moderately strong. The cheese contains 45 to 60 % fat in dry matter.

If the cheese ripens for longer than 180 days, it is called “Queijo Serpa Velho” (old). It is then not domed on top or slightly sunken, has a hard to very hard, straw-yellow to dark straw-yellow rind, which may be coated with colourless paraffin, and a semi-hard to hard, dry, slightly crumbly paste. Its taste is intense, clean, long-lasting and possibly slightly sharp.

Production

Queijo Serpa is made from pure raw sheep’s milk. It is curdled with an infusion of the flowers of the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus L.), after which the curd drains slowly. The cheese ripens for at least 30 days. Coagulation, moulding and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area in southern Portugal covers the municipalities of Mértola, Beja, Castro Verde, Almodôvar, Cuba, Ourique, Moura, Serpa, Vidigueira, Aljustrel, Ferreira do Alentejo and Alvito as well as individual parishes of the municipalities of Odemira, Santiago do Cacém, Grândola and Alcácer do Sal. It consists of wide plains well suited to forestry and grazing. The climate is Mediterranean and warm: on more than a third of the days of the year the temperature rises above 25 °C. Rain falls mainly in autumn and winter, and in summer there is a marked water shortage.

According to the specification, this climate and the way the animals are kept, with flocks of up to 600 animals, long milking times and long distances from the milking places to the dairies, shape a particular microflora in the milk. Together with the production methods used for centuries, it gives the cheese its characteristics.