Pecorino Sardo

Pecorino sardo DOP is Sardinia's defining cheese—a sheep's milk cheese produced across the entire island in two distinct types (dolce and maturo) that together encompass a remarkable range from mild, creamy table cheese to sharp, crystalline grating cheese, reflecting both Sardinia's pastoral heritage and its status as Italy's largest sheep-farming region (3 million sheep for 1.6 million people). Pecorino sardo dolce is young (20-60 days), with a white, smooth, elastic paste, mild lactic flavour, and soft, sliceable texture—it's a table cheese, eaten in slices with bread, honey, or fava beans. Pecorino sardo maturo is aged (minimum 2 months, often 6-12 months or more), with a straw-yellow, granular paste, sharp and complex flavour, and a firm texture suitable for grating—it's the cheese that finishes malloreddus, culurgiones, and every Sardinian pasta dish. Both are made from whole sheep's milk (Sardinia's native Sarda breed) using lamb or kid rennet, with the maturo undergoing a longer pressing, salting, and ageing process. Pecorino sardo is distinct from pecorino romano, which is also largely produced in Sardinia but follows a different DOP protocol (romano uses thermophilic cultures producing a sharper, saltier cheese, while sardo uses mesophilic cultures for a more nuanced, less aggressive flavour). The island produces nearly 60% of Italy's sheep's cheese, and pecorino sardo is central to virtually every Sardinian meal—it's not a condiment but a protagonist, eaten at every course from antipasto (dolce with honey) to primo (maturo grated over pasta) to the cheese course itself.

• Spanish manchego (sheep's milk, aged)
• French Ossau-Iraty (Basque sheep's cheese)
• Greek kefalotyri (hard sheep's cheese)
• Portuguese queijo de Azeitão (sheep's milk)