The best cheeses for your Easter picnic platter

This year Easter is high, as tradition says, but it is now just around the corner, just like the day after Easter, Pasquetta. It will arrive on April 21st and we hope the weather will be kind to all of us from the Alps to the Madonie. Many of us will leave our homes and head towards unknown destinations or ones already visited for their beauty and hospitality.

Indeed, it was typical, until a few years ago, to populate the banks of rivers, the flowered meadows in the hills, under silver olive trees and the newly green vineyards. Just like visiting monuments and castles in beautiful settings, as only Italy can offer. Relaxing by the shores of lakes and being among the first to visit snowless mountain refuges. Pasquetta means escape, a moment of carefree joy before returning to our daily work.

For those who want to experience a day free from constraints and from the ticking hands of the clock, and for those who have in mind a Pasquetta of bucolic pleasures and slow living practices, we have thought of a cheese platter, simple, delicious, and fresh, ideal for an outdoor lunch in direct contact with nature.

Our cheese platter for Pasquetta

It will be a platter easy to manage, for outdoor picnics and simple to prepare. The cheeses will need to be portioned before departure and kept in the fridge. There will be no creamy cheeses that release their water or whey. If desired, the cheeses we propose are also easy to cut, even at the moment.

We start with a Moesìn di Fregona, nice and fresh, milky, with aromas of yogurt and acacia honey. A great mountain cheese, coming from the lands north of the Prosecco hills of Valdobbiadene. A cheese that will win you over with its freshness and especially with its ability to melt and leave a beautiful sensation of milk and flowering hay.

We continue with a nice portion of an intriguing cheese rich in flavor: the Buffalo Brie. A cheese that has a pleasant and floral freshness, with a hazelnut sensation in the finish. Definitely melting with a beautiful creaminess on the palate and a significant salinity that envelops the palate.

Let’s spice up our picnic: here’s the pepper cheese by La Casara, a classic canestrato cheese made with cow's milk and finished with grains of Sarawak pepper. A delicate spiciness on the palate and a good salinity and creaminess.

At this point, we cannot enjoy the day outdoors without indulging in a cheese dedicated to flowering meadows and the most unspoiled nature. The Vento d’Estate from La Casearia Carpenedo, a barrel-aged cheese refined in mountain hay, among the most prestigious and well-known in Italy. Let the strength of the flowers caress you, with sensations of aromatic herbs: this delight will open your nostrils, elevating the balsamic value of lemon verbena and wild mint. Close your eyes and breathe in nature. It will be a wonderful sensation, unique in its kind.

We continue with some stronger sensations, yet refined and fresh. A nice piece of Redivino from Corrado Benedetti, a cheese aged in Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG that will unleash all its winey strength, mediated by a pleasant sensation of red fruits and delicate spices throughout the tasting.

We finish with a Pecorino aged in fig leaves. Let’s give a kick to the intensity of our journey through milks and sensory delights of cheese. The buttermilk of fig ensures this cheese has a beautiful floral and aromatic sensation of fine herbs. A sensation that blends well with the characteristic spiciness of a pecorino aged in barriques that previously contained quality red wines. Wait for the finish of the tasting of this cheese that will bring you to perceive a delicate yet broad enveloping sensation of vanilla.

Bernardo Pasquali