A soft, sweet, semi-cooked table cheese of the Pesaro and Urbino hills, made from 70–80% whole sheep's milk topped up with cow's milk and matured just 20–30 days. Small drum wheels of 800–1,200 g show a thin rind over a straw-white paste that eats mild, faintly tart and gentle. Its dialect name comes from 'cascio', the local word for cacio, cheese; documented in the Duchy of Urbino from the mid-1500s and famously loved by Michelangelo, it became the first sheep-and-cow cheese to win DOP protection and remains the Marche's flagship cheese.
Cheese-making in the Montefeltro is documented from the mid-sixteenth century: the cheese turns up as 'casci' and 'casciotti' in Duchy-of-Urbino papers, a set of grazing statutes — the 'Capitoli sopra il pascere del bestiame' — is dated 24 June 1547, and a 1545 commentary on the Duchy's constitutions already names it. Its fame rests above all on Michelangelo: between 1557 and 1561 Cornelia Colonnelli, widow of the artist's close collaborator Francesco Amatori of Urbino — known as 'l'Urbino' — sent casciotte to him in Rome, and in a letter of 1 January 1557 she describes dispatching 'un fardelletto de cascio ... de peso de livere otto', a bundle of cheese of about eight pounds; the 'd'Urbino' epithet carries this connection. Pope Clement XIV sent thanks for a gift of casciotte in 1761. The cheese gained Italian denominazione di origine by presidential decree of 30 March 1982 and European DOP status in 1996 (Reg. CE 1107/96), the first sheep-and-cow cheese so recognised.
The paste is supple and giving, nearer creamy than crumbly, with a clean milk sweetness up front, a light sheep's-milk tang behind it and only the faintest salt; the thin rind is edible and barely there. Young and gentle, it is a cheese to eat in slices with bread and a soft red, not one to grate.
Rennet clots the warm mixed milk at about 35 °C, its enzymes cleaving the casein micelles' stabilising layer so they flocculate into a gel that traps the fat. Because sheep's milk carries far more fat and casein than cow's milk, the curd is rich and the yield high; 'semi-cooked' means the cut curd is warmed only gently, never scalded, so it keeps moisture and stays soft. The short 20–30 day cure is the key to the sweet, mild character — lactic-acid bacteria acidify the paste while limited proteolysis and lipolysis build just enough flavour, without the bitterness or sharpness of a long age. Salting in brine or dry salt draws surface moisture and steers the ripening flora, and storage at 10–12 °C and 80–90% humidity keeps the young paste supple.
Variations
Traditionally shaped by hand-pressing into rounded drums in wicker, terracotta or wood moulds, now usually plastic; some wheels take a thin coat of clear wax. A little longer in the cave gives a firmer paste and deeper flavour. It is eaten in slices with Marche bread and figs, or with a young Sangiovese — a close cousin of central Italy's many caciotte, but singular for its high sheep-milk share and its DOP. It should not be confused with pecorino, which is all sheep's milk and usually aged much longer.
On the Palate
Where Casciotta d'Urbino sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8How it's made
8 steps · 30 min
- 115 min
Combine whole sheep's milk with cow's milk to make up 70–80% sheep, and heat the mixture gently to about 35 °C.
- 225 min
Stir in liquid rennet (and a lactic starter) and leave undisturbed for 20–30 minutes, until a firm, clean-breaking curd sets.
Watch outLeave it undisturbed until the curd sets firm and breaks cleanly off your finger — jostle it early and it never firms up right.
- 320 min
Cut the curd to hazelnut-sized grains, then give it a gentle 'semi-cooked' warming without scalding, so it firms a little while staying moist.
Watch outWarm the cut curd only gently — 'semi-cooked' means never scalding; too much heat squeezes out the moisture that keeps this cheese soft.
- 430 min
Lift the curd and hand-press it into rounded drum moulds, working out the whey to give the wheels their characteristic rounded shape.
- 520 min
Salt the young wheels in brine or with dry salt, then let the surface dry.
- 615 min
Move the wheels to a curing room at 10–12 °C and 80–90% humidity, turning them regularly.
- 736000 min
Ripen for 20–30 days only, until the paste is straw-white, soft and mild; wax-coat lightly if desired.
- 85 min
Cut into slices and serve at room temperature with bread, figs and a soft red wine.
