This cheese cooperative has an interesting history. In the 1950’s Tuscany’s feudal estates were broken up and many farm workers moved to industrial cities. The contadini left the land they had worked for generations, including much of the Val d’Orcia and the Crete Senesi hills.
Meanwhile, a number of Sardinian shepherds struggling to make a living in Sardinia, came across to the mainland. Some brought their herds. They began to reclaim the abandoned land which was well suited for grazing. They made sheep’s cheeses, as they did in Sardinia.
In the early 1960’s these independent cheese producers had difficulty competing with large private monopolies. In 1964, a priest from Contignano, Don Oscar Guasconi, helped the shepherds form a cooperative. It began with 10 members and today has over ninety, though fewer are Sardinian.
In 1995 the factory was remodeled to European Community standards. The modern cooperative now works 320 quintals (about 31 tons) of milk daily. The product line includes eleven types of cheese, from fresh ricotta to matured grating pecorino.
This caseificio specializes in Pienza-style pecorini. their youngest (matured one month) has a creamy white interior. The flavor is delicate with a light sweetness. Barely salted, it has only a faint taste of sheep’s milk. The mottled orange skin pecorino is colored with tomato paste. Matured for longer, its flavors and salt are more emphatic; smooth-textured, it is less moist than the younger cheese. The black-skinned pecorino, matured for over two months, is drier and saltier.
Caseificio Cooperativa Val d’Orcia
Strada dell’Orcia
p.+(0578)-52012
f.+(0578)-52085Open: 7:30 am to 1 pm and 3pm to 5 pm
Closed: Wednesday and Saturday afternoons; Sunday.
Directions: The
Leave a comment