Queijo Serra da Estrela

Appearance & taste

The cheese is a flat, regularly shaped disc, bulging at the side and slightly domed on top, without clear edges. It measures 8 to 20 cm in diameter, is 4 to 6 cm high and weighs 0.4 to 1.7 kg. The rind is smooth and medium-soft. The white or slightly yellowish paste is closed, creamy and supple, deforms when cut and has few or no holes. The taste is mild, clean and slightly acidic.

These characteristics become more pronounced with ripening. Queijo Serra da Estrela Velho, ripened for at least 120 days, weighs 0.3 to 1.2 kg and hardly bulges any more. Its rind is smooth to slightly wrinkled and hard to very hard, and the paste slightly brittle, dry and supple. Its colour – yellowish to orange or light chestnut brown – develops from the outside inwards. The taste is clean, strong to moderately pronounced, slightly sharp or salty and long-lasting.

The label reads “QUEIJO SERRA DA ESTRELA – DOP”, with the addition “VELHO” for ripened cheese.

Production

The sheep belong to the Bordaleira Serra da Estrela and Churra Mondegueira breeds and are kept only extensively or semi-extensively, mostly outdoors. They graze in pine forests, scrub and meadows and move to other pastures within the area depending on the season. When feed is scarce, cultivated grasses and fodder plants supplement the pasture; concentrates or compound feed are permitted only in snow, drought and similar extreme conditions.

The raw milk is curdled with flowers of the thistle Cynara cardunculus. The curd drains slowly. The cheese ripens for at least 30 days. All steps, from the birth of the animals to the packaging of the cheese, take place in the area of origin. Slicing and packing are also permitted only there; each cheese is checked individually for this so that it stays creamy when cut or, in the case of Velho, does not crumble.

Origin & history

The area lies on the wide plateau of the Beira. Winters are cold, rainy and long, sometimes with snow, and summers hot and dry. Besides pine forest, heather, gorse and other broom species as well as grasses and clover grow on the poor, acid soils. The region is the home of the two sheep breeds, which according to the specification have made good use of the meagre pastureland for centuries.

According to the specification, Roman authors already mentioned the region and its cheese. It is said to have been a popular food on the caravels of the great explorers and appeared in 16th-century plays.