Vezzena

A cow's-milk cheese from two milkings, one of them skimmed for the cream. The method is that of any medium-fat alpine cheese; what makes this one is the wild herbs of the Lavarone plateau and a long ageing. Even very old it keeps an extraordinary buttery smoothness, and what it smells of shifts with exactly when the cows were out. At a year to eighteen months the eyes close up and the deep yellow paste turns slightly grainy, the scent growing complex and herbaceous and the spice filling the mouth. Franz Joseph wanted it on his table daily.