Queso de Burgos

Appearance & taste

Queso de Burgos is cylindrical or cylindrical-conical and weighs 250 to 2,300 g; the diameter of the base is 1.1 to 1.5 times the height. The cheese is white or slightly yellowish, has no rind and smooth surfaces that look moist, on which imprints of the mould or the cloth may be visible. When cut, it is soft, white and moist, with a loose texture without holes; only where the curd has not fully knitted together are there small holes.

It smells of fresh milk. In the mouth it is soft, slightly grainy or buttery, somewhat elastic and sticky. The taste is mild, milky and sweet, slightly salty or not salty at all, neither sour nor bitter. The varieties differ in their proportion of sheep’s milk: “Queso de Burgos” with 5 to 10 % smells and tastes only very faintly of sheep’s milk, “Queso de Burgos Selecto” with 11 to 30 % slightly, “Queso de Burgos Supremo” with over 30 % strongly. The cheese has at least 40 % fat and at least 28 % protein in dry matter and more than 20 but less than 36 % dry matter. Each cheese carries a numbered control label stating the variety.

Production

The sheep’s milk comes entirely from flocks in Castile and León and must have at least 6 % fat, 5 % protein and 17 % dry matter. Cow’s and sheep’s milk are clean, fresh whole milk without colostrum, preservatives or antibiotics.

The pasteurised milk is coagulated with enzymes. The curd is cut, drained and moulded; the cheese is then ready to eat. Ultrafiltration and vegetable coagulants are not used, and the curd is not pressed; according to the specification, this gives the cheese a fresher taste. It is made in the province of Burgos.

Origin & history

The area has a cold, dry, markedly continental climate with Atlantic-influenced winters, dry Mediterranean summers and an average of 500 mm of rain a year. The mostly flat to hilly land lies at 600 to 1,000 m; thyme, sage and lavender grow on the often calcareous soils. Cereals, fodder legumes and sugar beet are grown, and sheep kept for meat and milk graze on the many stubble fields. This is where the sheep’s milk in the recipe comes from. Over the years it became customary to mix cow’s and sheep’s milk.

The cheese was part of the rural way of life in the Duero basin: it brought extra income and made the milk keep for a few days longer. In the 18th century the city of Burgos employed its own tax collector for the cheese sold at the market. In the mid-19th century Pascual Madoz mentions the widely popular cheese from Burgos at the city’s markets, and a dictionary of agriculture from 1889 calls it the best-known cheese of central Spain. According to a specialist article from 1988, fresh cheeses from Burgos were among the best-selling on the Madrid market in the 1950s. According to the specification, it is the only Spanish fresh cheese with a geographical indication.