Idiazabal

Idiazábal is the iconic smoked sheep's-milk cheese of the Basque Country and Navarre in northern Spain, named after the small town of Idiazábal in Gipuzkoa. The cheese received Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP) status in 1987 and is made exclusively from the raw milk of the Latxa and Carranzana breeds of sheep, which graze on the high mountain pastures of the Pyrenees and Cantabrian range from spring through autumn. The traditional production is carried out in mountain caseríos and farm cheese dairies (queserías), typically by the shepherds themselves during the spring transhumance.

The curds are pressed into cylindrical moulds that give the cheese its characteristic tall, drum-like shape, then salted in brine and dried for at least two months. The traditional smoking step uses beech, cherry, or hawthorn wood, often in small chimney-smoking rooms on the farms where the cheese is hung above an open hearth. The result is a firm, ivory-to-pale-yellow paste with a waxy rind that ranges in colour from pale gold to deep amber depending on the smoking time, and a flavour that is buttery and nutty with a clear, lingering smokiness balanced by the natural sweetness of the sheep's milk.

Today Idiazábal is produced by the Idiazábal DOP regulatory council covering Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia, Álava, and Navarre, and is exported to specialty cheese shops in Spain (Barcelona's La Boqueria, San Sebastián's Bretxa), in Madrid and Bilbao, and to cheese counters in New York, Paris, and London. It is served with quince paste (membrillo), walnuts, and a glass of txakolí or Rioja, and is the centrepiece of the annual Idiazábal shepherd's cheese fair held in the town of Idiazábal each spring.