Visit to a gorgonzola dairy
The most fascinating thing about a visit to a gorgonzola dairy (apart from the tasting obviously) is the pride and enthusiasm invested in the cheese.
Caseificio Eredi Baruffaldi in the tiny town Castellazzo Novarese 12 km outside Novara in Piedmont is a traditional, Italian, family-run dairy. It started with a great-grandfather, who herded cows on the mountain pastures of Valsassina some 150 years ago, and the interest in milk and cheese making was passed on through the generations. Today the Baruffaldi dairy is owned by two brothers and a sister. Paolo, Rocco and Maria Teresa Baruffaldi run the dairy together, and they are all eager to talk about the ingredients, the production techniques and the taste of their products.
Every day the dairy processes 400 tons milk. The milk is made into a creamy, mild gorgonzola, a strong gorgonzola and a gorgonzola layered with mascarpone. Three products that have been developed and enhanced continuously over the years.
The first turning of the cheese. It is owner and manager Paolo Baruffaldi to the right.
The turn of the cheese
After putting charming blue plastic bags over our hair and feet, we are led into the dairy where a huge multi-purpose boiler heats up the milk to the exact right temperature to promote fermentation. The curd is separated from the whey, cut to create pockets of oxygen, where tasty blue mould can grow, and poured into cylinders for further drainage.
At long tables some of the 30 employees are busy turning the heavy cylinders around, as the gorgonzola gets firmer as it ripens. For an amateur, is seems as if gorgonzola and other kinds cheesemaking is all about patience and cheese turning. The next day the cheese is salted, moved to temperature controlled storage rooms and left for 60 to 80 days depending on the variety. With a few days interval every single one of the cheeses have to be washed and turned in order to control the mould. I guess, some of these workers could feel envious of Sisyphos who at least had the good fortune to work outside in the fresh air, had it not been for their immense pride in producing highly uniform quality products to be sold all over Europe.
Gorgonzola has to be washed and turned every so often during maturation.
The human assembly line
We end up in the packing hall where the aged gorgonzola are quartered and wrapped up in aluminum foil and placed in a plastic container. It’s all manual labour performed by a line of three men, who cut, wrap and seal cheeses in a matter of seconds.
That’s is fortunate, because across the yard Maria Teresa is waiting with a light lunch of gorgonzola dolce, gorgonzola piccante and meltet gorgonzola to eat or scoop up with crackers, black rice, bread and vegetables. A great finish for all gorgonzola lovers.
The human assembly line packing gorgonzola.
Our visit to a gorgonzola dairy was organized by Biteg – Borsa internazionale del turismo enogastronomico
Gorgonzola is a DOP protected product. It can only be produced in specific towns the Piedmont provinces of Alessandria, Novara, Vercelli, Biella, Cuneo and Casale Monferrato, and in the Lombardy provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Milan, Pavia and Varese.
More about cheesemaking and gorgonzola:
Making mozzarella at a farm dairy near Altamura
One of my favorite cheese…
Mine too.
Ohhh, bet this was really interesting. I remember our first taste of gorgonzola and we thought it was terrible. :) A few more attempts and we’re now full gorgonzola converts…not that we see it so often in Turkey.
Julia
No, Turks love their feta, which is a great cheese too. Especially in boerek.
Did they have to throw you out? They would have to force me. No way I’d leave all that beautiful cheese.
No, they used bait camouflaged as a tasting of their first prize celebrity cheese.
Wow! I never ever thought of visiting a Gorgonzola dairy. What a great experience you had!
It’s an interesting place. And a lot more sterile than I’d imagined.
What a great experience and I’m so jealous you got to see all that and do tastings too. Your lunch sounds delicious! That is a lot of milk and it’s such a great way to see the arduous process of making the cheese. It makes one appreciate it more.
You are right about the milk Mary. Those cheeses shrink to a fraction of their original milky weight.
So interesting to learn how food is made. I visited a dairy in the mountains of Austria a few years ago, much smaller than this, though. What’s gorgonzola dolce? A dessert?
In spite of the name Gorgonzola dolce is not sweet but mild. It hasn’t matured as long as the gorgonzola piccante that does not have to be spicy.
Thanks for your article – really interesting! How did you arrange this visit? Can you recommend how we can also visit a Gorgonzola dairy?
We visited the gorgonzola dairy as guests of Biteq, an organisation that promotes gastro-tourism, but if you are traveling on your own, I think it can be quite hard to get to see the caseifici. My best advice would be to join a gastronomic tour. Some producers are open to visitors once a week or once a month, if you call and make an appointment beforehand. The best time to find these open dairies would undoubtedly be during the Sagra Nazionale del Gorgonzola, when all the participating producers are making an effort to present the magic of their trade.