A buttery cheese made from sheep’s milk at the Alentejo’s Monte da Vinha cheese dairy in Vimieiro won a gold medal at the prestigious World Cheese Awards, held last weekend in Bergamo, Italy.
The cheese – made only with raw sheep milk, salt and thistle rennet – was chosen following a blind taste test.
The jury panel was made up of over 300 “specialists, experts and food critics”, spread out across 84 tables, who tasted 804 cheeses from 42 countries and six continents. Monte da Vinha was the only Portuguese cheese to be awarded.
“When I realised that my cheese was the only one to receive a ‘Gold’ award at our table, I became very emotional,” said Joana Garcia, the founder of this all-female cheese dairy which she has led since 2004.
Says the former lawyer, the secret of her cheeses boils down to their “passion and respect for the product”.
“It is extremely pure and is made without any food additives. The ingredients have to be of top quality and we use thistle rennet, a vegetable coagulant. The maturation is another fundamental element. The cheeses’ ageing chambers have the ideal humidity, ventilation and temperature, which try to replicate the ideal conditions of spring,” Garcia explained.
Monte da Vinha is open all year round and produces around 6,000 cheeses a week, exporting around 20% of its products.
