Our cheeses
What is Idiazabal Cheese?
The cheese Denomination of Origin Idiazabal is par excellence the cheese of the provinces of Guipuzcoa, Alava, Biscay and Navarre, produced in the saws of Urbia, Aralar, Urbasa, Andia and Monte San Donato. In the olden days there was the habit of distinguishing it by its origin until the end of the eighties by the regulation of the Denomination of Origin, when they decided to unify the different names with that of Idiazabal, which became the cheese produced in the Basque Country and Navarre by the sheep races.
Idiazabal’s cheese is a product that from its beginnings, more than eight thousand years ago, sinks its roots in the nature. It is a pure milk cheese of latxa (sheep of the bramble patches) or carranzana (sheep of the meadows) sheep, which produces a limited quantity of milk, about one hundred litres each season and of an exceptional quality.
To produce one kilo of Idiazabal cheese seven litres of milk are needed, which supposes a natural limitation of the quantities of cheese elaborated by the shepherds. The whole of the producers associated to the D.O, approximately 100, produce about 1.000 annual tons of cheese.
How is an Idiazabal Cheese?
For the value of the cheese and to guarantee that it continues being a high quality product, we ask you to be exigent with the characteristics that you will find later on. In case you believe that your product does not come true with the mentioned, get in touch with us or with the person who sold you the cheese.
A good way to classify it is according to different characteristics
COLOUR: In the case of the White cheese the colour will be a yellowish beige, depending on if it has been brushed strongly or not with water, bearing in mind that for being of sheep will never be so white as a cow cheese. In the case of the Smoked ones the colour resembles a marooned ochre. The colour will be homogeneous; the presence of tonalities of different colour in the paste could be considered as a fault, which can be owed to the ventilation conditions of the ripeness room or to the incorrect rennet homogenization.
TEXTURE: in reference Idiazabal’s texture, we will find a hard paste cheese with firm consistence where we can find granular parts when chewing but never being clotted. It is presented in a cylindrical slightly convex form despite that it can have some deformations due to its natural and craft attributes.
SMELL: it has and intensive and characteristic smell, reminding to sheep’s milk. In the smoked ones, the paste should not smell a lot to smoke because it could be a fault.
FLAVOUR: its flavour, the same as the smell, should be intense, clean and keeping a consistent aftertaste. It could be not sufficiently intense because of two reasons: insufficient time of ripening or excessive flavours intensity as spicy, salted or smoke that masks its characteristic flavour.
What kinds and categories do exist?
We can classify the D.O. Idiazabal cheese in two varieties:
1. White Cheeses
2. Smoked Cheeses
Despite the fact that the most popular is the smoked one, or at least the one that we can find in more points of sale, the cheese that has more valued characteristics and which is tasted and evaluated by the Official Taste Committee of the Denomination of Origin is the White cheese
We can divide the white cheese in three categories in relation to its characteristics:
1. Craft made: craftsman label
2. Zumitz or Green label
3. Latxa-Gazta or Black label
4. Gaztazarra or Grey label, which corresponds to old cheeses, which have more than 12 months of ripening.
Who and how do the tasting?
The Regulatory Council of the Origin Denomination, which is responsible of guarding for the quality and the making processes established for Idiazabals Cheese, owns a blender team, the Official Taste Committee of the Denomination of Origin, who qualifies and value which particular characteristics the cheese have. The characteristics on those they base their judgement are: the form, the rind the paste colour, the texture, the smell, the flavour and, finally, the aftertaste, what is a fundamental aspect on Idiazabals cheese.
Taking the base of 130 possible points, those cheeses (also the lot which they represent) that obtain a punctuation higher than 100 points will achieve the maximum distinction, the Latxa-Gazta (Black label), that recognises the delightfully and exceptionality of its flavour and presence. In the other hand, the Zumitz (Green label) will be given to those cheeses which obtain punctuations higher than 78.
What are its nutritional main aspects?
The advantages derived from the consumption of D.O. Idiazabal’s cheese are clear due to the nutritional composition of our cheeses.
Thus, its high contents in calcium, converts D.O. Idiazabal cheese in a recommended food to prevent illnesses like the osteoporosis. And due to its low contents in carbon hydrates and the increase in the secretion of saliva warns the dental cavities by blocking the growth of some of the microorganisms that provoke it.
