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Historical Bitto

Description

Historical Bitto is a cheese made from raw whole cow’s milk (Alpine Brown cows) with the addition of raw goat’s milk (Orobica breed goats) at a percentage ranging from 10 to 20 percent. It has cooked paste; it is semi-hard or hard if aged for a long time. The goal is to maintain traditional processing as much as possible, in keeping with nature and animal times. The cows are milked by hand to stress them as little as possible, and rotational grazing is practiced: during the three months of alpine pasture, the herd is led through a route in stages, going from the lowest to the highest station. Along the way, traditional calèccs-thousand-year-old stone buildings that protect the cheesemaking area- serve as roving processing huts, always on hand, so that the milk does not have to travel except for a few meters and can be processed before its natural heat dissipates. The use of supplements in cattle feed and the use of additives, preservatives or selected ferments in cheese production is expressly prohibited. It has a minimum maturity of 1 year but there are wheels of more than 10 years. The color of the paste is very intense golden yellow and almost hazelnut if aged for a long time. It has smell and aroma of high intensity: melted butter, fermented hay, meat broth. Aging brings trigeminal sensations of spiciness. The texture of the paste is soluble and grainy with high taste-olfactory persistence.

Curiosities

Historical Bitto has an eventful origin: it was in fact created by a group of cheesemakers who in 1994 did not accept the PDO that expanded the production area of this cheese to the entire province of Sondrio.
They then gave birth to the Slow Food Presidium of Historic Bitto, to preserve ancient production techniques that were in danger of being replaced by modern ones.
In 2014, exactly 20 years after the beginning of the dispute, two consortia were officially recognized, including one to protect historic Bitto.
At the headquarters of the preservation consortium you will even find a “cheese bank,” where you can buy a fresh cheese wheel and then leave it to mature at the dairy for several years.
If you want, it is also personalized with writing, dedications or drawings made with cranberry juice-a custom-made cheese!
It is made only in mountain pastures from 1400 to 2000 m and only during the summer period (60-90 days).
The alpine pastures in Bergamo are: Alpe Foppa, Alpe Parissolo, Alpe Ancogno Soliva, Alpe Calvizzola.

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