Zeraingo Udala - Ayuntamiento de Zerain
TOURIST ATTRACTIONS > Cheese making
Javier
Muñoa, a shepherd from the Basazabal farmhouse, has a warm welcome for
anyone interested in learning how Idiazabal cheese is made.
Combining new technology with the techniques
passed down from his grandfather, Patxi, and his father, Julián, Javier
makes cheese of the very highest quality.
In addition to grazing his
flocks in nearby fields and on common land in Oamendi (on the slopes
of Aizkorri), looking after the pens, milking the sheep and making the
cheese, Javier also finds time to explain the process of obtaining a
good cheese worthy of the official Idiazabal label.
Visitors are shown around the fields and
pens, and then given an in situ explanation of the cheese-making process:
milking system, vats, curdling, moulding, pressing and storing in the
special chamber, etc.
In Zerain's Basazabal farmhouse, visitors
are offered a unique opportunity of getting to know Basque shepherds,
their work and their lives, as well as sampling the delicious end product:
their exceptional cheese.
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