/ Our magazine / Summer Wind Cheese: a journey through herbs and flowers
/ Our magazine / Summer Wind Cheese: a journey through herbs and flowers
The aged cheeses from La Casearia Carpenedo always offer unique suggestions and fascinating stories. Vento d’Estate is a great example, and its pleasantness, once you know its history, goes beyond mere organoleptic value. So, let us tell you about one of the most renowned and sought-after Italian cheeses on the market. A true aged cheese, a benchmark for Italian cheese production.
We are in the mid-’90s on a warm summer day. Antonio Carpenedo and his wife Giuseppina are returning from a Sunday in the mountains on the Grappa peaks. These are the usual destinations of the Treviso locals. On the way back, Antonio’s car, winding around the curves, encounters a farmer with a cart full of hay. Due to the narrow road, he can’t pass and follows him for a few hundred meters. He doesn’t make a drama of it; rather, a gust of wind hits him and he allows himself to be intoxicated by that delightful balsamic air scented with flowers and field herbs coming from the cart in front of him. He follows the cart and starts thinking. After a few minutes, he manages to pass the farmer with the tractor and, shortly after, stops right in front of him. With great agility, he stormily gets out of the car, halts the tractor, and approaches the somewhat surprised farmer. “Excuse me – says Antonio – would you mind giving me a bit of hay to take home?” The farmer gives Antonio a trunk full of hay, and then they bid farewell with a hearty laugh. During the journey back home, Antonio explains his intuition to Giuseppina: to try to transfer all the scents and essences of that hay to the cheese using the already tested technique of centripetal aging. Upon arriving home, Antonio places the hay in a barrel and wraps the first cheese he finds: a Sardinian pecorino that had just been gifted to him. After about 40-50 days, he opens the barrel and sees that dense, cottony white molds have formed around the cheese. The aroma that emerges is extraordinary, balsamic, floral, and unique in its kind. He opens the pecorino, and the whole family is delighted. From that moment on, the production of this incredible cheese, which over the years has conquered the world, begins: Vento d’estate.
Vento d’Estate is produced from a wheel of cow’s milk cheese from the high pastures of the But Valley in Carnia. The wheel is placed in oak barrels, wrapped in hay suitable for food use, coming from the pastures of the alpine valleys of South Tyrol. The hay contains over 200 varieties of flowers, herbs, and medicinal plants. After a minimum of 5 months spent in the barrel, the cheese is taken out and left to dry in the aging caves in Camalò. During this resting period in the barrels, the cheese undergoes secondary fermentation in contact with the hay, and the essential oils begin a centripetal penetration inward, reaching the heart. The texture of the cheese changes and becomes denser due to the fusion with the aromas of the hay.
When tasting a slice of Vento d’Estate, it is essential first to ensure that a part of the rind is still attached. The rind is edible, as with all cheeses from La Casearia Carpenedo. Hold the portion of cheese in your hand, break it in two, and immediately bring it to your nose at the breaking point. Breathe in that air full of aromas, preferably with your eyes closed, and let yourself be carried away by those sensations of chamomile, linden honey, dried yellow flowers, mallow… it feels like walking in a blooming meadow. Then, bring it to your palate and let it melt gently to enhance the floral aromatic sensation. At the end, savor the rind and appreciate all its balsamic power with notes of mint and acacia honey. A pleasant and rare emotion.
Vento d’Estate: uses at the table
In a cheese platter, Vento d’Estate can be paired with cow’s milk cheeses of various aromatic intensities or those with a medium aging. Vento d’Estate is an excellent cheese to pair with Acacia honey or with citrus marmalades or white fruit jams. For fresh summer salads, it is excellent cut into cubes with fresh vegetables and Modena IGP balsamic vinegar. The Vento d’Estate has good melting properties and can also be used in cooking. In particular, if you want to prepare intriguing chicken or turkey scaloppine. Remember to add it on top of the scaloppine only towards the end of cooking the meat to avoid overtoasting the cheese. Another use can be as a filling for spring tortelli filled with field herbs with Vento d’Estate and a bit of green asparagus cream. If you want to pair it with cured meats, it's better to select fresh and aromatic cured meats. Excellent are cured meats with fennel seeds inside, with slightly smoked speck, with aged arista, or with sweet salami.
For such an aromatic and balsamic cheese, it is best to use wines that have a fruity and aromatic component particularly evident, or wines that don’t have excessive structure that in some way overshadow all its pleasantness. Therefore, we recommend frizzante or sparkling wines using Charmat method. For a perfect pairing, we suggest Pinot Grigio, or a wine from South Tyrol, Gewurtztraminer, or even better, Muller Thurgau. For their floral notes, it would also be excellent to try some white wine from Campania like Falanghina del Sannio. Vento d’Estate is also an excellent pairing with dessert wines from dried grapes to be offered at the end of the meal as dessert.
Bernardo Pasquali
S&M
We recommend that you enjoy
✔ You have added the product to your cart!
