🧀 Gorgonzola

Gorgonzola is an Italian PDO blue cheese made from whole pasteurised cow's milk, with a white to straw-coloured paste and blue-green veins of mould. It comes as sweet (dolce) and sharp (piccante). In 2024 more than 5.27 million wheels were made, a record. It ripens for at least 50 days. ⁴⁵

The production area covers 15 provinces and part of Alessandria in Piedmont and Lombardy. Piedmont makes the most cheese: 3.8 million wheels against 1.45 million in Lombardy. The farms lie in the same area, and at least half of the cows' dry feed comes from it. Production value reached €430 million in 2023. ⁴⁵

The pasteurised milk receives lactic ferments, Penicillium spores and yeasts, then calf rennet at 28–36 °C. The cheese is dry-salted at 18–24 °C, the paste is pierced so the veins can develop, and it ripens at −1 to +7 °C and 85–100% humidity. ⁴

The specification sets three types. Dolce weighs 9–13.5 kg and ripens for 50–150 days. Piccante, at the same weight, ripens for 80–270 days. Piccola piccante weighs from 5.5 to under 9 kg and ripens for 60–200 days. Sharp cheeses are only 14% of the total. Each wheel carries a mark with the dairy's number on both faces. A wheel is a cylinder at least 13 cm high and 20–32 cm across, with at least 48% fat in dry matter. ⁴⁵

Legends and first records. Nobody can say exactly where it began. One chronicler links it to a cheese in the will of a 9th-century Milan archbishop, others name the town of Gorgonzola in 879 or the caves of Pasturo, and a folk tale blames a forgetful herdsman who mixed evening and morning curd. These are stories, not proof. Its early name, green stracchino, points to something firmer: it was made in autumn, when herds came down from the Alps. ⁷

From local cheese to export. In 1860 Mattia Locatelli began building what is regarded as the first large ripening plant, at Ballabio, and by the end of the century the family had offices in London, Buenos Aires and New York. Producers formed a consortium in 1970, with Novara as its centre. In 2025, 37 companies belonged to it, and in 2024 sharp Gorgonzola grew fastest, up 20 %. The first half of 2026 was stable, at about 2.58 million wheels. ⁷⁸⁹

Why the veins form. Spores go into the milk at the very start, but the blue-green colour appears only during ripening. The specification ties this to three traditional steps: seeding with Penicillium, dry salting and piercing the paste. Plentiful local fodder is the other part of the link with the area, which is why at least half of the cows' feed must come from it. ³⁴

Why it matters to you. Genuine cheese is wrapped in embossed aluminium foil with the PDO mark, and the sharp type also carries the word «piccante». For a mild taste choose dolce, for a stronger one piccante. The rind is not eaten: the specification calls it inedible. The NHS advises pregnant women to eat soft blue cheeses, including Gorgonzola, only when thoroughly cooked. Look for the small "cg" embossed across the foil, because similar cheeses abroad can borrow the Italian look: Coldiretti says 90 % of Italian-type cheeses in the US are made in Wisconsin and California. Pear, fig, walnut or honey balance its salt, and the cheese adds creaminess to risotto or sauce. ⁴⁶⁷⁹¹⁰