ITALY
La Casearia Carpenedo, a 4th Generation Italian cheese company, is featuring one of its most prized cheeses available – Blu ‘61. Crafted in 2011 to celebrate 50 years of marriage with his wife, Antonio Carpenedo produced a cheese that was designed to blend together the intense flavors of a blue cheese with the sweetness of a Raboso Passito IGT wine.
Alessandro Carpenedo, Co-owner for La Casearia, tells DeliMarket TV, “Blu‘ 61 is peculiar for its elegance and harmony. The aromatic and intense notes typical of the blue cheese are wrapped by the scents of marasca cherry and fruit of Passito di Raboso wine”.
Blu ’61 is aged for approximately three months before it is matured in red wine and red cranberries.
Interestingly, the idea behind this unique blend between wine and cheese first started back in 1976 when one the main suppliers for the dairy told Antonio about World War I farmers in the Piave River area in Northern Italy who would hide wheels of cheese inside vats to protect them from the soldiers’ raids and save them for family needs. These vats held grape marcs in fermentation. The farmers soon discovered that the cheese had been preserved better, the rind’s color had changed, and the taste was better. Antonio and his father continued to use this process and eventually decided to register the Ubriaco trademark. They were the first in Italy to do this, Alessandro tells us.
Be sure to check out the rest of La Casearia Carpenedo’s unique cheeses at the company’s website linked below, especially Blu ’61!
La Casearia Carpenedo
Blu ‘61
