Pecorino di Filiano

The making of Pecorino di Filiano rests on the pastoral tradition of the Vulture, grazed since Roman times along the royal drovers' roads of the transhumance and organised into specialised sheep farms under the Doria princes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The milk comes from local breeds — the Gentile di Lucania and di Puglia, the Leccese, Comisana and Sarda — set with artisanal lamb or kid rennet, and the wheels are matured in the district's natural tufa caves at twelve to fourteen degrees. The name of Filiano itself is traced to the abundance of spun ('filata') wool of its flocks. It became the region's first DOP cheese in 2007.

Firm and close-textured, pale straw within and printed with basket ridges without. Young, it is milky, grassy and gently sweet; with age the paste hardens and the flavour turns sharper, nutty and lightly piquant, with the fruity, faintly bitter note of the oil-and-vinegar-rubbed rind behind it.

Semi-cooking the curd to around forty-five degrees expels whey and knits a firm, low-moisture paste that will keep for months. Pressing into the tight rush baskets drains it further and shapes the ridged rind. Made from raw milk, the cheese carries its own wild lactic flora and enzymes, which over the long cave-ageing break down proteins and fats by proteolysis and lipolysis, building the sharp, nutty depth and, in older wheels, tiny crunchy crystals of tyrosine. The steady twelve-to-fourteen-degree damp of the tufa slows this and holds the paste even, while the oil-and-vinegar rub keeps the rind supple and holds off unwanted mould.