This is the most popular, appreciated, exported and copied of all Italian cheeses. It is excellent as a complement to several dishes but also alone, as an aperitif or to finish a meal in style. It is tasty and perfumed, easy to digest and very nutritious. That is why it is the favorite cheese of those who practice sports (especially the high-resistance ones that need a lot of energy such as cycling, running, and sky).
Different ages and a label
Almost 160 gallons of milk are necessary to make a traditional parmigiano wheel that is aged on wooden shelves without any human interference. The natural crust that forms is also edible. The DOP label, that stands for Denominazione di Origine Protetta (Controlled Name of Origin) is given to wheels aged at least 12 months. According to the time spent aging, this extraordinary cheese can be consumed as aperitif (if aged 18 months), used to add flavor to soups and first dishes (if aged 22 months), or enjoyed at the end of a meal or as second course (if aged 30 months or more).
From Emilia Romagna with love
The DOP parmigiano reggiano is produced only by 380 small and medium cheese factories using the milk of about 3,500 farmers mainly from the provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, and Modena. These three cities are all located between the Apennines Mountains and the Adriatic Sea, and belong to the region called Emilia Romagna.
A mark since 1600
The first stamp to testify to the quality of this tasty food and to protect it from its imitators, was given to parmigiano reggiano by the Duke of Parma in 1612. At the time this cheese was called formaggio di parma (the cheese from Parma) and was already exported to several countries. Since then, this delicious cheese has never failed to find customers and its production never slowed down. At the beginning of 1900 a few rules of production were established, paving the way for the first association of producers to be created, in 1928.
The right wine
With a young parmigiano reggiano, the best wines are white and still (like a Soave, Lunaga, Gavi, Arneis) or dry sparkling wines, either white and rosé. With an aged cheese, the full-bodied, red wines are the best: Barbaresco, Barolo, Brunello di Montalcino, Sagrantino or the Sicilian red wines.
