Tolminc

Appearance & taste

Tolminc is a round wheel 23 to 27 cm in diameter and 8 to 9 cm high, weighing 3.5 to 5 kg. The rind is smooth and straw-yellow. The paste is elastic and yellowish, with a few holes the size of lentils to peas. The cheese contains at least 60 % dry matter and at least 45 % fat in dry matter.

The smell is characteristic and free of foreign odours, the taste sweet and slightly sharp. The label states whether the cheese was made from raw milk or thermised milk. It may also state that the cheese has ripened for longer than two months, that the milk comes from cows fed without silage or that it was made in an alpine dairy.

Production

The milk comes from the area, at least 80 % of it from Brown Swiss cows. The cows are fed mainly on green fodder and roughage from the area (pasture grass, hay and silage), which makes up at least 75 % of the dry matter of the daily ration. The milk is processed raw or thermised at 57 to 68 °C.

Matured milk is used, to which fresh milk may be added before coagulation. It matures for at least 12 hours, during which the native microflora develops and the milk reaches the right acidity. Home-made or selected starter cultures are allowed. After rennet is added, the milk coagulates at 32 to 34 °C in 25 to 35 minutes. The curd is first cut into larger cubes and then broken down to the size of hazelnuts. It is heated to 44 to 48 °C and dried with constant stirring.

The cheese is pressed for 6 to 12 hours in a heated room and turned in the process so that the whey drains faster and the wheels take on a regular shape. It then lies in brine for 24 to 48 hours. Each wheel is given the date on which ripening began or the batch number. During ripening, which lasts at least two months, it is turned, wiped and cleaned.

Origin & history

In the Upper Soča valley, Mediterranean and alpine climates meet. According to the specification, it is the area of Slovenia with the highest rainfall: humid air from the Mediterranean rises against the western Julian Alps, and the valley, open towards the Adriatic, strengthens the influence of the sea. In Tolmin the mean annual temperature is 11 °C. The flora of the alpine meadows and mountain hay meadows on limestone and dolomite is very rich in species, with some endemics and warmth-loving species. Through the feed it shapes the milk and thus the cheese; when the raw milk matures and with the home-made starter cultures, the native microflora also passes into the cheese.

The first written records of the cheese go back to the 13th century, when it was delivered to the landlords as a payment in kind. As “Formaggio di Tolmino — Tolminski sir” it appears in 1756 on a cheese price list of the town of Udine. Towards the end of the 19th century, cheesemakers came to the area at the instigation of the Agricultural Society in Gorizia; in 1886 various hard cheeses were made on the Razor alpine pasture under the direction of a Swiss. According to the specification, the livestock farmers of the valley still practise alpine farming today, with the seasonal move between the valley, the lower pastures and the high pastures, where cheese is made from the end of June to the beginning of September.