It is made exclusively in the province of Zamora, one of the largest producers of sheep's milk in Spain.  The production is done at the same season that the wine, so they are two strongly licked products.

Frequently compared with the Manchego cheese (due made of pressed pasta and have the same format), Zamorano D.O., artisan or industrial, is made exclusively with raw / pasteurized sheep's milk from the Churra or Castellana species. 

Characteristics:
This cheese has a cylindrical format, bat with different sizes: the diameter can be 9 to 24 cm. Also, it has a defined rind and can be marked with patrons, depending on the production process.

The Designation of Origin allows the use of pasteurized or raw sheep milk of the Churra or Castellana species. It is made with sheep's milk with 45% dry extract.

Elaboration process:
It is a cured cheese. It is prepared with the pressed paste method using the whole milk.  This paste is coagulated by an enzymatic process curdled with animal rennet.

The process has a minimum maturation of 100 days for cheeses weighing more than 1.5 kg and a minimum of 60 days for cheeses weighing less than 1.5 kg.

Hard rind, yellow, brown or dark-brown.

The texture is firm, compact elastic. The pasta can become rougher with maturation. Some small eyes erratic distributed in the paste. It has a hard and acidic flavor with a fatty texture.

The acrid smell it will make you think about sheep's milk. Dried fruits and spicy notes appear in aged cheeses. The spicy appear slowly. In the older ones, this sensation is more persistent. 

ORIGIN: Cabrales is a blue cheese which is made in Principado de Asturias in Spain, in particular in the county Cabrales and Peñamellera Alta, in the middle of Picos de Europa.

CHARACTERISTICS: It’s a semi-soft blue cheese that usually gets darker as time goes by. It's a fatty cheese with mixed curdling. Its maturation is between 3 and 5 months. The penicillium mold grows naturally in  maturation caves, with a particular temperature, humidity and airing out. This gives to this cheese dark bluish-greenish veins and a spicy flavour.

Characteristics at the end of maturation:

MILK TYPE: Raw of cow, sheep and goat.

PRODUCTION: In order to prepare Cabrales cheese, first hit the milk and add the curdling agent. When the curd is ready, it is crumbled, then let it stand and the whey is removed. Next put it into cylindrical moulds without pressing, let it dry, then remove it from the mould and add salt. Then starts the maturation process, in natural mountain caves (between 2-4 months). In these caves the relative humidity is 90% and the temperature is between 8-12º C.

The goats are carefully milked manually or by machine in hygienic conditions to hold back microbe development. After filtering, the milk is coagulated by adding natural rennet or using other starters authorized by the Regulatory Council. For the coagulation process, the milk must be kept at 27-33ºC for approximately 45 minutes. 
The resulting curds are cut into small sizes and then transferred into ring-shaped molds where they are pressed and placed on square-mesh plastic sheets to drain. 
Then the cheeses are salted, usually using, sea salt from the island’s salt pans. 

If is salting  by immersion, the brine must be at a maximum concentration of 20º Beaumé, and immersion must last no more than 24 hours. 
After salting, the cheeses are smoked, using different sources of smoke, like almond shells (Prunus dulcis), prickly pears (Opuntia ficus indica) or Canary pine (Pinus canariensis). 
Ripening is carried out in caves or special storage facilities. During the process, the cheeses are turned and can be rubbed with olive oil, cornmeal or flour to protect them. 

If I were a cheese, I would be Torta del Casar because it is made by sheep raw milk. 

Its origin dates back to transhumant shepherd, who elaborated this cheese when their animals gave birth. This way they could store it and eat it the rest of the year. Sometimes, the cheese, instead of staying hard, it transformed soft, staying convex, so the shepherd thought it was ruined and they threw it out, until one of them tasted it and liked it. The geographic area of production is Cáceres, at Extremadura Autonomous Region, in Spain. 

This cheese is elaborated by traditional methods from sheep raw milk, which coagulation is made by vegetable rennet coming from the thistle, which scientist name is Cynara cardunculus. The cheese ripening will be at least for 60 days. What makes the different from a hard cheese to a soft one is the protein break down (proteolysis) during the ripening process.

The thistle rennet produces a characteristic soil flavor, and, in the end, a soft bitterness. The curd is very soft and tasty, with scents that remember the dry hay. Its colour is white or yellowish and can have some holes from the ripening. The texture presents moderate or high creaminess, oily nature, flux and soft granularity.
 

Origin: It’s a typical spanish product deeply rooted in our nation’s history. It’s made in the heart of Castilla La Mancha, in the region named ‘’Comarca de la Mancha’’, a part of the Spanish plateau.

Production: It's a cheese made of sheep’s milk, traditionally pressed on esparto baskets, although now molds with similar patterns as the original weavings of the baskets are used. After being pressed, it’s salted and then aged, with time ranging from a month to 2 years, where it’s flavor evolves and changes.

Sensory Description: It’s a very robust looking cheese, with a hard crust with a buttery, creamy interior with a flavor reminiscent of sheep’s milk. It also has a very beautiful presentation, with the crust marked with a zigzagging pattern. It can be presented with many different ages, as it ages and gets cured, its flavour gets stronger and sharper with age, getting nutty flavors and even some spiciness after months of aging.

And in herd land, cheese is made, in this case goat's, sheep's, or from the mixture of the two milks. Only in Azores islands, with humid climate, the grass abounds and abound dairy cows  as well.

Making cheese by hand is an art. In the families of shepherds, knowledge passes from generation to generation, paying attention to details: to the temperature of the hand, to the time of the work, to the turning and the change of the straps, to the pasture of broom or other grasses of altitude that greatly influence the flavor of the final product.

The best known cheeses in Portugal are Alcains, Azeitão , Cabra Serrano, Castelo Branco, Évora, Idanha-a-Nova, Nisa, Ovelha Amanteigado, Pico, Rabaçal, Serpa, Serra da Estrela, S. Jorge, Sto. Isidro, Terrincho, and Tomar. Some of them are very similar, others are rather different from the others. 

Let's caracherize some of them!

It is ideal as an aperitif.

The consumption of cheese has been gaining importance in the gastronomic habits of the Portuguese people. Tourism, Erasmus+ programme and the internationalisation of economy, have certainly had a huge weight in this change.

For breakfast and snack, we consume mainly Portuguese cheeses, with bread; foreign cheeses (until recently mainly Italian and French) are appreciated on other occasions, together with Portuguese cheeses.

As the beginning of an informal meal, especially at lunch, a fresh cheese is accepted with pleasure, accompanied by slices of industrial or rustic bread. Salt or salt flower and pepper should be available on the table. The same cheese can be previously seasoned with a strand of a good olive oil, sprinkled with a few drops of vinegar and flavoured with chives or oregons. A fresh salad may be the complement.

If the meal is more formal, it’s common practice to precede it with an aperitif, which includes traditional sausages and cheese, arranged on a table apart with a basket with slices of bread, mini toasts or biscuits with little flavour; wine, salads and fruits are also have relief papers.

We must not forget here the “friend meals”, evenings or cheese dinners, which include several cheese boards of all families, carefully presented: from fresh to natural or in pastes worked with aromatic herbs, to very strong ones. Bread and wines, of which at least two or three varieties are served, are indispensable; salads and fruits are indispensable.

I’m an old teacher J and I never forget the delicious “merendas”, in the middle of the afternoon, we had in my grand mother’s balcony, in Trás-os-Montes, made of wheat and rye bread, muscatel grapes we had just harvested in the vineyard and regional cured cheese. It was in the sixties/seventies of the 20th century! Unforgettable!!!

In this map we may see the most famous cheeses made in Portugal and their land of origin!