Fontina cheese is Valle d’Aosta. It is the essence of the mountains, the alpine pastures and the people that live there.
This is a full fat, semi-hard cow’s milk cheese which has been produced since medieval times. It is made with raw milk from three local breeds: “pezzata rossa”, “pezzata nera” (the red and the black pied cows) and “castana”. This breed is much smaller in size – similar to its Holstein-Friesian sister – and more suited to climbing steep mountain pastures. The castana produces much less milk per day.
Fontina is still prepared twice a day, after the morning and the evening milkings. It is made either at the local consortium dairies, to where the milk is delivered, or, in the summer season, directly in the single Alpeggi in the mountains.
📸 Luigi Chiesa