Queso de Vaca - Cows’ & Mixed Milk Cheeses

Tetilla

Tetilla, the most characteristic cheese of Galicia (but also produced in the Asturias), is made from pasteurized cow’s milk. It is easily recognized by its shape and smooth, yellow-ivory colored rind. The name (meaning nipple) comes from the traditional shape of this cheese, which is shaped like a woman’s breast with a small nipple on the top. The paste is soft, thick and smooth with few air pockets. Clean and buttery in flavor, it has a is smooth and very creamy texture.

Wine Matches: This lovely cheeses marries well with just about any wine you might want to put with it, maybe the perfect foil among Spanish cheeses. If you like cheese with your best red wines, this is the one to try with great Rioja gran reservas, Vega Sicilias and other fine wines of the Ribera del Duero, well-made cabernet sauvignons, etc. The cheese is also excellent with Galician white wines--albariño, Ribiero, godello from Valdeorras, and with reds made from the mencia grape in Ribiera Sacra and Bierzo.

Mahon

Mahón comes from the town of the same name, capital and port of Minorca, the most northerly of the Mediterranean Balearic Islands. A pasteurized cow’s milk cheese, it was originally made from the milk of cows imported from England during the British occupation of Minorca in the early 18th century. Rocky Minorca has a mild climate with plenty of rainfall and high humidity from sea breezes, which help irrigate the pastures and give good acidity to the milk, at the same time imparting hints of saltiness to the cheese. There are many varieties of Mahon, ranging from semi-cured to well aged (the cheeses were made to withstand long-term storage and transportation by sea). The rind is either rubbed with oil or paprika and the cheese pasta is compact and crumbly. Aged versions can be reminiscent of cheddar. Mahón is Spain’s second most popular cheese after Manchego.

Wine Matches: Big, extracted, new-wave Mallorca red wines from native callet and foreign syrah; Priorat and Montsant wines from the Catalan mainland. Also good with a wide variety of sherries, ranging from manzanilla to oloroso, other fortified wines and dessert wines such as the muscatels from Mediterranean areas of Valencia, Alicante and Málaga; and the rare, late harvest garnacha red wines from Priorat and northern Catalunya.

Afuega l'pitu

Afuega'l Pitu from mountainous Asturias—called by some Spain's national park of cheeses—is made from raw cow’s milk into a curious shape, like a beggar’s purse that weighs just about a pound. The name means 'fire in the throat' in Asturian dialect, but this creamy, sometimes granular cheese is not necessarily fiery; it’s a gamey, rustic cheese, with a piquancy from the pimentón with which it’s rubbed on the outside. Not yet well-known outside Spain, Afuega'l Pitu has a small, but loyal following among cheese aficionados, who can't get enough of it.

Wine matches: Because of its lightly picante finish, this cheese needs refreshing white wines such as Txacoli, Ribeiro, Albariño, Alella, cava or rosados from La Rioja and Navarra. A young unoaked Bierzo red works well, too. Asturian or Basque cider is also a great match.

Beyos

Beyos (cows', goats’, mixed milk) from Asturias, is a dense, compact, "peasant" style artisan cheese from the Picos de Europa mountains. Made from the raw milk of cows or goats, or the two mixed together, it has a unique flinty texture and flavor. The animals graze on grass that grows in the chalk-laced soil of the Sella river valley. The texture of this cheese, which breaks away in shards, is reminiscent of white chocolate. The firmness at first bite melts into a buttery, creamy, chalky paste with a long balanced tangy finish. It is a cider or wine cheese par excellence.

Wine Matches: Spanish cider; Txacoli from Vizcaya; Galician white wines; young mencia-based red wines from Bierzo, Rioja and Ribera del Duero Reservas with good acid.

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