The 5 best Italian drunken cheeses you must try

Getting a cheese drunk is not simple. Today, if we go shopping at the counter, we find all kinds of them, yet only some can bear the name of drunken cheese. Behind it lies a challenging technique that involves a refermentation of the cheese in wine or pomace. Just contact with wine does not necessarily make it a drunken cheese.

How many times do we find ourselves picking a drunken cheese that has a beautiful color on the outside but then reveals a completely pale and essentially anonymous paste inside that tastes like nothing? What a disappointment one feels at times. Then we realize we have been fooled and may even come to think that the drunkenness is merely a simple coloring of the crust, and that the price of such pseudo-drunken cheeses is often too reasonable for the reputation they have. Beware of such misleading products, because drunken cheeses are precious and high-quality products.

The drunkenness of cheese was a technique used by some farmers in Montello, in the Treviso area, who, during the First World War, to save their food supplies from the hunger of foreign soldiers' garrisons, placed cheese wheels inside barrels where they kept pomace or wine. A technique that lasted until the end of the Second World War and reached the knowledge of a Treviso cheesemaker who would mark the history of Italian affinements: Antonio Carpenedo. 

Antonio knew of some farmers who would buy various whole, unaged forms and then submerge them among the pomace of the typical grapes of those areas, from the Raboso Doc  of the Piave to the grapes of Prosecco DOCG, or the various Merlot and Cabernet wines from Veneto. From there, he came up with the idea of reproducing that technique and defining it as a proper technique for drunkenness. He even invented a name for those cheeses: ubriachi. Yes, that's right, the name Ubriaco has been registered by the Carpenedo family and will remain theirs, even though it has become common culinary terminology over time. Antonio, from that insight inspired by that almost unknown local story and tradition for most, made it a true flagship of the company, a work that was awarded last year as Best Affinatore of Italy at the Italian Cheese Award. Following in those footsteps, many cheesemakers and affinators have followed him with high-quality products. 

Among the greatest Italian cheeses aged in wine, we cannot omit to mention the predecessor, the precursor of this type: the Ubriaco al Raboso, which represents the first true Italian drunken cheese. With the same traditional technique of the Treviso farmers, adapted later by La Casearia Carpenedo, in this cheese we feel all the strength of the wine and its aromas penetrated into the paste. Red veins multiply in the paste and are an indelible sign of the highest quality.

Another great drunken cheese is certainly the Occelli al Barolo from the great Beppino Occelli, another guru of affinements in Italy. A semi-aged cow's milk cheese that is left immersed among the pomace of Barolo for at least two months. Then it is aged on wooden planks in the Occelli company's caves and then passed in wine according to an ancient Piedmontese technique. 

A cheese that has received the highest recognition worldwide is undoubtedly the Blu 61, always released from the creative mind of Antonio Carpenedo from Camalò. A cow Bleu that is immersed in passito wine from Raboso and then garnished with cranberries of Canadian origin. A creamy cheese that can be placed at the end of a meal as a real dessert. A delicacy that is sought after worldwide, so much so that it ended up behind the showcases of Harrod's in London.

We highlight two other drunken cheeses that have conquered the world. The first is the Capo di Stato from the Carpenedo family produced with the legendary Capo di Stato wine from Loredan Gasparini of Venegazzù: pleasure to the nth power. The second is from another great affinator, also from Treviso, who has broken through the World Cheese Awards in London with numerous awards along with Antonio Carpenedo: the great Carlo Piccoli. His Ubriaco al Traminer is undoubtedly a fantastic product of rare pleasure.

So beware of imitations when you pick a drunken cheese. They are pearls of Italian quality that must be safeguarded and valued at the table. They represent, in fact, a cultural and historical heritage of Italian dairy tradition.

Bernardo Pasquali

S&M