I ran into this cheese at Sunset Corners. By coincidence, I had tried another Portuguese cheese Saturday evening at a friend’s house, and it was quite good. My only other exposure to Portuguese cheese was Azetao, but the portion I got was way past its prime, so I had no way to judge it’s quality. I was at Sunset Corner’s great Saturday tasting (noon – 4 every Saturday!), and spotted this cheese in the case. I’m still trying to pick the cheeses and wines for the first Cheese Class, so I thought I would give it a try.
It’s quite good. The paste is off-white, with a creamline tending towards a dark ivory. The aroma is of fresh cream, with notes of straw and earth. On the tongue, it’s got a pretty distinctive flavor that reminded me of clotted cream, with brown butter and grassy notes. It paired quite nicely with a Cline Viognier and St. Francis’ Red.
This is a raw milk cheese, with sheep and goats milk. It’s a semi-firm cheese; some of the references I found noted that was pretty aggressive, but I didn’t find it so. It was somewhat intense, but not unpleasantly so.