Piave Vecchio Cheese

All About Piave Vecchio from Italy

If you like Parmigiano- Reggiano and aged Gouda, you are going to love Piave Vecchio.

A wonderful cheese made with high-quality, pasteurized local milk and tastes like a young Parmigiano with a bit of aged Gouda. Nutty almonds with tropical fruit, this is another of what I would call a “value” cheese.

Piave comes from the northeastern part of Italy near the Dolomites in the Veneto region of Italy. It has been given the Protected Designation of Origin, otherwise known as the DOP which stands for Denomination di Origin Protetta.

This designation protects the name of the cheese and how it is produced.

Named after the Piave river, Piave is a hard cheese and sold at 5 different ages. These are:

• Piave Fresco (20 to 60 days aging - blue label)
• Piave Mezzano (61 to 180 days aging - blue label)
• Piave Vecchio (more than 6 months aging - blue label
• Piave Vecchio Selezione Oro (more than 12 months aging - red label)
• Piave Vecchio Riserva (more than 18 months aging - black label).

All Piave cheeses are aged in special temperature and humidity controlled cellars. The are regularly brushed and scraped and turned throughout the aging process.

I tried the Piave Vecchio Red Label and I highly recommend this Italian mountain cheese for your next cheese board. It's also great for grating and is a wonderful substitute for Parmesan cheese.

The Short of Piave Vecchio Red

Milk Type: pasteurized cow’s milk
Region: Belluno Dolomites area
Country: Italy
Type: Hard
Shape: Round
Wheel Weight & Height: 15 pounds - 2 inches tall
Rind: Natural
Color: Golden Yellow
Paste: Sweet and Crystalline
Taste: Sweet, fruity, slight bitterness
Aroma: Yogurt and Milk
Aging Time: 12 months or more
Texture: Dense
Rennet: Animal
Producers: Lattebusche Sca

History

Piave Vecchio is a relatively new cheese created in 1960 by the dairy masters at the Lattebusche dairy cooperative. However, cheeses with similar recipes have been made in this mountain region for hundreds of years.

Part of this recipe that makes Piave Vecchio so unique is it is made from both the morning milk and the evening milk. The evening milk has its cream removed by skimming and then is combined with the whole milk from the morning.

This technique gives this cheese its unique and distinctive qualities.

Milk Source