Parmigiano Reggiano from Cravero
Giorgio Cravero’s family has selected and aged Parmigiano Reggiano in Bra, Italy since 1855. Just off the main drag of the town of Bra, home to Slow Food’s biennial Cheese festival, lie the halls of Cravero. Twenty-foot high rooms that hold five thousand wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano. Cravero’s wheels rest on pine and they turn their wheels more frequently than other agers with an aim to
make a softer, less cakey texture.
Aging rooms like Cravero’s have long been a part of the cycle of making and selling Parmigiano Reggiano, much like they are for other long-aged cheeses like Comté and Gouda, cheeses whose lengthy affinage represents a real cash flow issue to farmers and cheesemakers.
Commodity Conundrum
A consorzio unites Parmigiano Reggiano makers. It has, by almost any measure, done an amazing job. Thanks to its work parmesan is the single most admired—and eaten—cheese in the world. But there is a gnawing flaw. The consorzio does not mention the maker and ager so it gives the impression that the cheese is a commodity, that there is no real difference from one wheel to the next.
Cheesemongers know better
People may have a sense that Parmigiano Reggiano is an interchangeable cheese, one wheel no better than another. But while its production is controlled by a strict PDO, there’s nothing in the rules that says farmers, makers and agers can’t try to do better. Some do—and you can taste it.
Mountain Pasture
The milk for Cravero Parmigiano Reggiano comes exclusively from cows that graze near among the mountains of Benedello di Pavullo. Not all Parmesans are made in the mountains, but it makes a difference. The diverse mountain ground cover gives these cheeses a distinct terroir, a flavor that can’t be replicated from lowland grass.
Massimo's Marvel
Head cheese maker, Massimo pictured here, makes just ten wheels of cheese per day. His dairy is called Caseificio Sociale San Pietro and it’s one of the smallest makers in the Parmigiano Consorzio. Plus he's one of only a few dozen of the 300 Parmigiano Reggiano cheesemakers who make a cheese from exclusively mountain pastures.
Parmigiano details
Cheesemaker Massimo Libra
Latterie 2659 in Benedello di Pavullo, est. 1973
Unpasteurized cow’s milk
Affineur Giorgio Cravero in Bra, est. 1855
Wheels sold as 90 lbs whole, 11 lbs eighths