Puzzone di Moena

Moena, Fassa Valley, Trentino

Trentino's most aromatic cheese — a washed-rind full-fat cow's milk cheese from the Fassa Valley, ripened for a minimum of 90 days with weekly brine washing. The name means 'the stinky one from Moena' — entirely accurate. The rind is sticky, red-orange from Brevibacterium linens, intensely fragrant (barnyard, ammonia, cooked cream), while the paste is supple, elastic, ivory-yellow, and comparatively gentle: buttery, nutty, with a long savoury finish. Officially protected as Puzzone di Moena/Spretz Tzaorì (the Ladin name).

• Both are strong washed-rind cheeses with sticky orange-red B. linens rinds and surprisingly gentle pastes — Munster from Alsace is broadly known, Puzzone from the Trentino mountains is its Italian Dolomitic counterpart, both using the same microbiological character → Munster Géromé AOP French
• Neighbouring Alpine cheeses from the same mountain dairy culture — Austrian Bergkäse is a pressed, hard mountain cheese from the same grazing tradition, Puzzone is washed-rind and soft, both reflecting the diversity of Alpine cheesemaking within a shared pastoral economy → Vorarlberger Bergkäse Austrian

Aggressively aromatic rind (barnyard, ammonia, ferment) over a gentle, buttery, nutty paste — Trentino's most confrontational and rewarding cheese