Formaggio Branzi, Wine Contests & More: Being the 166th issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings, and has happened in the past I apologize for the long delay between issues. We shall see if, this time, I manage to establish a schedule and stick to it. While I have been silent here, I haven't been silent overall; all sorts of things have appeared on both Italian Food -- the latest longer thing a look at Porchetta, with pictures that were perfect for Halloween -- and on the Italian Wine review, the latest longer pieces being a look at the 2007 vintages of Roero and Barbaresco, which will be quickly followed by the 2006 Barolo.

Formaggio Branzi

Returning to Cosa Bolle, people who live in Alpine valleys have little land for farming -- much of the ground slopes too steeply for one to be able to plant fields -- and the growing season at higher elevations is also short.

This leaves, as an alternative, herding of one sort or another, and it should come as no surprise that the Alps are among the premiere cheese-producing regions of the world. Some of the cheese is d'alpeggio, made in the summer when the herds migrate up into the mountains, going from meadow to meadow and reaching elevations as high as 2500 meters -- in Lombardia Formaggio d'alpeggio is also called Formai de Mut, a term that derives from Formaggio di Malga, a Malga being an Alpine stable -- and one cheeseman at the Salone del Gusto told us that when he worked exclusively with alpine cheeses (he now handles others as well) he could recognize the aromas of the grasses the cattle had eaten in the cheeses, and therefore, since he knew which grasses grow at which elevations, tell how high the cow had been when a given cheese was made.

Of course flocks and herds can only stay in the Alpine meadows for so long; by late August temperatures begin to drop off and the farmers bring the animals back down the slopes to the stables where they will spend the winter, and continue to produce milk, which must be put to some sort of use.

Now, up in the mountains it makes sense for the herdspeople to make cheese just from the milk their animals produce -- individual formaggi di malga, or alpine cheeses from individual herds -- because it would be very difficult to bring the milks from different herds grazing different slopes together. Moreover, if one were to mix the milks, one would loose the distinctive traits that come from the individual meadows.

Down on the valley floor, on the other hand, the animals are eating forage, which is not going to be as distinctive, and therefore their milks will be more similar. Also, the various farms are much closer together, and connected by a network of roads. It therefore makes more sense to make cheese communally, and in 1953 the farmers in Branzi, a town in the Alta Val Brembana behind Bergamo that has long been known for its cheeses (the Fiera di San Matteo, a cheesefest on the last Sunday of September, was already well established in the Napoleonic era) founded the Latteria Sociale Casearia di Branzi, which makes a number of cheeses.

The most important is called FTB, Formaggio Tipico Branzi, the valley-floor analogue of Formai de Mut; about 60 farmers contribute milk, which is gathered by a small tank truck in the evening and worked in the morning; it's heated to 37 C (human body temperature), rennet is added, and once it has curdled the curds are broken up the size of grains of rice and heated to 45-46 C (about 110 F). The whey is drained away (it's used to make ricotta), while the curds are placed in forms, wrapped in muslin, and pressed; the resultant cheeses, which are 40-50 cm (20-25 inches) in diameter, 9cm (a scant 4 inches) thick, and weigh 10-12 k (22-25 pounds, from 100 liters, or 25 gallons of milk), are salted in a brine solution for 3 days, and then aged in halls with 85% humidity at 8 C (about 48 F) for up to 2 years, or in the case of Branzi Stravecchio 3 years. The resultant cheeses are pale yellow, with smooth pale crusts, and have finely distributed, tiny holes evenly distributed throughout the body of the cheese; in terms of flavor they are mild and creamy when young, and become more piquant with age.

Total production of FTB is 30,000 wheels; cheeses that pass the final inspection are stamped with the cooperative's distinctive red FTB mark, and sold throughout the valley, as well as in delicatessens in Northern Italy.

The cooperative makes a number of other cheeses as well, in particular stracchini, which are soft cheeses with soft rinds; the term stracchino derives from stracch, or tired, and refers to the fact that the cheese was traditionally made from the milk produced by the cattle upon their return to the valley floors, when they were tired because of the migration and therefore produced a distinctive milk. The cheeses are aged in caves, where the crust develops a characteristic moldy white coating, and the body of the cheese softens while gaining pleasing complexity. In other words, stracchino was a very seasonal cheese (it is now made year round), and it is eagerly sought out by connoisseurs.

One important thing: There is stracchino and there is stracchino. The stracchino made in the Val Brembana and other Alpine valleys is an artisanal cheese made in limited quantities. If you visit an Italian supermarket, you will also find very fresh very mild spreadable cheeses, which are wrapped in waxed paper because they are too young to have a rind, labeled stracchino. This is a very different, commercial product that simply happens to also be called stracchino.

The other interesting cheese made in the Val Brembana and surrounding areas, which the cooperative also makes, is Strachitunt: It's a round stracchino (tunt = tondo = round), and is made from morning and evening milks, curdled separately, and interlayered in the cheese forms with curds from the morning milking, which are more consistent, forming the top and bottom layers. After salting the cheese ages in caves, developing a moldy coating, and after 30 days it is punctured top and bottom repeatedly with long skewers to open paths for molds to enter the cheese, and work their magic over the next 3 months or so.

If you think it sounds something like Gorgonzola you'd be right, though the people who discussed it at the Salone del Gusto say it's a progenitor of Gorgonzola (more specifically Gorgonzola piccante, the sharper variety), and potentially more interesting because each individual cheese follows its own path after being punctured. With respect to Gorgonzola it is a bit sharper, and more intense, and therefore can surprise those who have not encountered it before.

Strachitunt production had almost completely stopped after the War, because it was a mountain cheese made primarily to save time -- the cheese maker worked the evening and morning curds together rather than go though the entire cheese making process morning and night, but production resumed in 2002 and the cheese is slated to achieve DOP (Product of protected origin) status. Something I cannot but view positively, because it is a very interesting, tasty cheese.

Wine Competitions & Scoring

Moving in a different direction, I was in Bergamo as a judge for Emozioni dal Mondo, a wine competition dedicated to tagli Bordolesi, Bordeaux blends. I discussed why the competition is dedicated to Bordeaux blends last time, but didn't say much of anything about the competition itself. We followed the OIV (Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin) rules for wine competitions: each wine is judged by a panel of several judges who use a standardized form to evaluate color, bouquet and palate and assign a point score; the president of the panel gathers the scores, discarding best and worst, and we move on to the next wine. The OIV rules also state that there can only be one tasting session per day, and limit the total number of wines each panel tastes -- we tasted four sets (flights is the technical term) of wines, with a break after the first two, for a total of about 36 wines.

The afternoon was free (for us), while the organizers tallied the scores. The OIV awards medals to the wines on the basis of the scores they receive -- 80-82 is bronze, 82-85 silver, 85-92 gold, and above 92 grand gold. The OIV also states that no more than 30% of the wines entering a competition can be awarded medals. Here 204 wines were submitted; nobody got a grand gold (though one wine came very close), while 57 wines got gold medals and 4 got silver. More would likely have gotten silver, had there not been the 30% cutoff.

This scoring system may strike you as strange (it did me at first), and you may be wondering why the competitions don't simply recognize the top three wines with a gold, a silver, and a bronze medal. However, but there is thought behind it the scoring and medals. Logic, too: wine competitions depend upon wineries' deciding to participate and send samples, and the payoff for the winery is the opportunity to win a medal.

If a winery stands a minimal chance of winning something there is no incentive to participate, and this is why the OIV awards medals by score -- if the winery sends a good wine it stands a good chance, and the more good wines there are the more gold medals there will be, while fewer bronze and silver medals are awarded. Still sound odd?

The other thing to consider is that a competition like Valcalepio's invites relatively unknown wineries to send their samples -- a top-flight Bordeaux or Bolgheri winemaker will have no interest in participating at an even dedicated to Cabernet-Merlot blends (and indeed none did), because if he or she wins a medal, having done so will be "to be expected," whereas if he or she doesn't the fact will be noteworthy. A lesser known winery instead can be noted, and while a single medal won't necessarily carry much weight, a string of medals from different competitions will.

Bottom line, competitions like the Valcalepio Appellation's Emozioni dal Mondo offer a window for winemakers who want to emerge, and also give journalists the opportunity to taste wines they would never taste otherwise. For example, I tasted (and enjoyed) several Israeli Merlot-Cabernet blends, also wines from Germany and the US that simply do not make it to Italy. I had a great time, learned something, and hope to be invited again.

Got Cured Olives?

Winding down, I am a great fan of olives, and will happily much my way through a jar of cured olives in a matter of hours. This makes me rather extreme, I think.

However, if you have plain brine-cured olives, be they green or black, and pitted or not, you can jazz them up quite easily. Pietro Morabito, who had a stand in the Calabrian section of the Salone del Gusto, was offering cured plain brine-cured olives seasoned with finely chopped celery, garlic, bell peppers (they used sweet, but you could also mix in a few fresh hot peppers if you wanted), olive oil, and chopped fresh herbs -- parsley, if I remember right.

"Mix everything together," he told me, "let it rest for a few hours, and serve it forth with toothpicks on the side." They were mobbed, and this is definitely something you should consider for your next party, or even as a mixed antipasto. They'll go quickly!

This time's proverb is Tuscan: Chi non vede il fondo, non passi l'acqua - If you can't see the bottom, don't ford the stream.


Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com

PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it! If you would like to read past issues (nothing in them really gets stale), you'll find them on the IWR site, through http://www.cosabolle.com.