Pestogenovese News: our products
News & Comments

The Trarcantu cheese: a new cheese with ancient origins

Trarcantu cheese

Alps and vineyards

On Tuesday, June 19th, 2001 the "Trarcantu cheese: Alps and vineyards, year 2000" will be publicly presented at the restaurant of the "Argentina Hotel" in Paraggi (Santa Margherita Ligure).

This kind of cheese is a truthful "gastronomic challenge". It has been created by Guido Porrati, the owner of "La bottega dei Sestieri" in Rapallo and a great expert of the Italian cheese sector, and by Walter de Batté, an expert of the Cinque Terre wines. This latter produces the Sciacchetrà wine and has contributed to draw a great deal of international attention to the wines produced in that area. This kind of cheese is produced by ageing the Aveto cheese (it is produced in the Aveto valley) and the Sciacchetrà rapes, which are still rich in taste and juice after being pressed.

This procedure is done in January, after the Alps have been left and the grapes vintaged. This cheese is produced by the women living and working in those same valleys and is left ageing for 4 months in the alpine huts and then it is left seasoning for 6 months with the rapes, which are made fermenting again thanks to natural starters. This cheese is an absolute novelty, this is a new kind of "drunk" cheese. Its production is very limited (only 8 cheese, 8 Kg each, are produced) and it is characterised by a special taste and fragrance reminding people of distant memories: this is due to the cheese itself, which is deeply enriched by the wine’s fragrances and scents.

The first year of production of the Trarcantu cheese (its name means "just around the corner" in the Riomaggiore dialect) was 1999. 12 cheese were ready in the spring 2000, this cheese was so successful that it was mentioned on the pages of the American "The magazine of la Cucina Italiana". It was mentioned in Italy too, and this is what matters most: the prestigious guidebook "Guida critica e golosa di Paolo Massobrio", the "Guida ai Vini d’Italia 2001" published with the Gambero Rosso magazine, the "Soprattutto" magazine published with the daily newspaper "Il Secolo XIX" mentioned it and many more magazines and newspapers published this piece of news. It was also presented on TV, "Sereno Variabile" and "La vecchia fattoria", two Italian TV programmes.

The new cheese is now ready to be eaten. The chef Edoardo Ferrera, working in the restaurant of the Argentina Hotel in Paraggi, has invented a new way to taste this cheese and to enhance its fragrances. Guido Porrati and Walter de Battè will be very glad to share with you this wonderful experience. Everyone is invited: friends, curious people, gourmets, cuisine experts, actors and story-tellers….. we’ll talk about Liguria, forgotten cheese and the hardships and efforts of farmers wanting to protect this land’s products and about the passion and dreams of a vine-grower. We will enjoy the great pleasure of tasting a truthful treasure: Walter found a number of bottles of Sciacchetrà wine in a cave in Riomaggiore, they date back to 1957!

Please call the following number to confirm us you’ll be there:

+39 185 23 05 30

or

+39 328 21 55 098 (Guido Porrati’s mobile number)

Dinner starts at 8:30 pm at the restaurant of the Argentina Hotel, Paraggi, Tigullio, Via Paraggi a Monte 56

+39 185 28 67 08