Farms, dairies, cooperatives and affineurs in Alentejo that you can visit or buy from.
A guide to cheese farms in Alentejo.
Cheese dairy near Serpa, started in 2001, with separate sheep's milk lines (Serpa DOP, requeijão) and goat's milk lines (fresh and cured). Its factory shop sells to the public on weekdays.
Cheeses: Queijo Serpa, Requeijão, Queijo de cabra fresco
Visiting: factory shop selling its own cheeses, weekday opening 9:00 to 17:00
Dairy in Penedo Gordo, founded in 1995 and named Almocreva in 1999, making cured sheep's milk cheese in the Serpa recipe from its own flocks' milk. Its website invites visitors to buy or arrange a factory visit.
Cheeses: Queijo Serpa
Visiting: buy cheese on site, factory visit by appointment
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Raw ewe's milk only, set with an infusion of cardoon flower (Cynara cardunculus) rather than animal rennet, plus salt. The APS, the producers' association, lists exactly three ingredients: raw sheep's milk, salt and the cardoon infusion.
At least 30 days under the specification. When ripening passes 180 days the cheese becomes Queijo Serpa Velho, which is hard, dry and stronger.
Two, both from the DGADR page: the curd is cut with only four movements, based on religious beliefs, and the cloth used to filter the milk is folded exactly 40 times. English Wikipedia repeats the 40-fold detail.
The specification describes the paste as buttery with a cut face that deforms easily and may spill. Cold storage firms it, and Queijaria Guilherme advises taking it out of the fridge an hour before eating.
Age: the specification reserves the name Queijo Serpa Velho for cheese ripened for more than 180 days, against a minimum of 30 days for Queijo Serpa.
Not always. The specification lets the Velho's rind be coated with colourless paraffin, and allows a surface coating containing a preservative if the producers' group approves it; in that case the label must say that the rind is not edible.
The DGADR page says the milk comes from the regional Merina Branca breed, raw and unpasteurised.
The DGADR gives three formats: a small hard cheese of 6 to 8 cm and 60 to 90 g, a hard merendeira of 12 to 14 cm and 120 to 200 g, and a semi-hard merendeira of 13 to 15 cm and 200 to 300 g.