🧀 Ossau-Iraty

Ossau-Iraty is a French cheese with a protected designation of origin (PDO), made only from non-standardised, renneted ewe's milk in the Basque and Béarn mountains and foothills (the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques and three communes of Hautes-Pyrénées). It is a cylindrical, uncooked, lightly pressed cheese of the Tomme type with a straight or slightly convex side; farm Ossau-Iraty is made only from raw milk.

Milk. Only milk from ewes of three local breeds is allowed: Basque-béarnaise, Manech black head and Manech red head. The ewes must graze at least 240 days a year, genetically modified crops are prohibited, milking is forbidden in September and October, and average yield may not exceed 300 litres per ewe per milk year.

Sizes and ripening. There are two sizes: cheeses 17 to 21 cm in diameter weighing 1.8 to 3.3 kg, ripened at least 80 days, and cheeses 22.5 to 27 cm in diameter weighing 3.8 to 6 kg, ripened at least 120 days. The cheese has at least 50 % fat in the dry matter and at least 58 g of dry matter per 100 g.

Look and taste. The paste is ivory-white to amber-cream, smooth, firm and velvety, and may have a few small eyes. The natural rind is dry to slightly moist and ranges from orangey yellow to grey. The smell is subtle, sometimes with notes of flowers or fruit; the taste is intense and balanced, salty but not excessively so, often nutty or fruity.

Marks and labels. Each cheese carries an embossed label or casein stamp with the head of a ewe. The name must appear on the label in characters at least two thirds the size of the largest lettering. The term estive may be used only for raw-milk cheese made in mountain pastures, in the shepherd's hut (cayolar, etxola or cuyala). The cheese may be cut into portions, diced, sticks, strips, shavings, slices or grated; otherwise a part of the rind must be present, except in portions under 50 g.

History. According to the specification, ewe's cheese has been made in the western Pyrenees since at least the Middle Ages, as sharecropping contracts of the 14th century and notarial documents of the early 15th century confirm.