It’s a cylinder-shaped sheep cheese, with plain sides and a straight border. It is produced in 4,5 kg and 9 kg cheeses as thick as 8 up to 18 cm and a diameter of 29 up to 35 cm. The skin is light brown with thin stripings and the dough is smooth, pale yellow coloured and has a light hot taste. It is produced in the Commune of Montefollonico within the province of Siena.
After refrigerating and storing the milk is pasteurized and coagulated with natural young veal cheese-rennet. The coagulation after breaking is poured in the dies and then you keep on acidificating and the purging in hot room then it dry salted and eventually it is seasoned in a thermo-conditioned room for about 300 days by using metallic grids.
The product is subjected even to a treatment with olive oil over its crust.
The traditionality of the product is linked to the techniques of growing sheeps, left to the half-wild state and grown by herbaceous pastures and wood pastures for 11 months a year.
The working techniques and the pedo-climatic conditions of the area.
The production of that cheese that in the province of Siena is told to be produced only one farm is of about 1000 cheese a year; considering the unit weight of 6 kg you produce about 6 tons a year.
The sale is done both in the production area and in the rest of the region but even abroad, particularly in the United States.
The usual customers of that product are the small shops of the area, the gross sellers and the great dealers.
The Grande Vecchio, as well as the other sheep cheeses of that area is shown in the Sapori Senesi area of the White Truffle Fair that is set every early November in San Giovanni d’Asso (SI). In two different editions of that Show it won the first and the second prize.
