The street of Asti cheeses it is a journey of visits, tastings and meetings with pastures, animals and people. Course created and promoted by Davide Palazzetti, almost five years ago, as an original tool for telling the story of the grace scattered almost everywhere between the villages and the Asti area, I continuously invite visitors and tourists to discover it in the pleasant excuse of tasting sumptuous cheeses. Invitation declined on infinite itineraries of flavor, humanity and beauty.
Itineraries that touch, since their origins, producers of high flavors, artisans of taste and passionate breeders. Goats in Roccaverano, among the farms that make up the Roccaverano Consortium. Goats and sheep in Cessole, from Pot of the Cross, the kingdom of Mattia with unmissable dairy fruits that are well influenced by the natural energy of the place and people. Blu di Loazzolo, rich and tasty blue cheese made from cow’s milk, processed according to tradition by Castellero family. It’s still, the goats looked after by the young Marco from I formaggi di Moasca. Its large is unmissable Ruota, a mature cheese of undoubted character, and Capreggio, taleggio cheese made from goat’s milk. Goats even further north, a Capriglio, from Goats and Cabbages, for creamy robiola and exciting fresh. Locally sourced cow’s milk Cocconato to produce the mythical Cocconamagnificent soft cheese, with a typical round and flat shape, produced only there and only by Balzi dairy. They were recently joined by two other young breeders and cheesemakers: between Vinchio and Nizza Monferrato Fazenda Bricco Civetta where Lisa produces mozzarella, braids and provola da ola, with the milk of her girls, Rendena and Valle d’Aosta cows raised in a semi-wild state, and in Mongardino, on the first hills south of Asti, close to an eighteenth-century Sacro Monte still enhance, Lucia’s goats and Bianchina Cheeses.
A place for each cheesemaker, told together with the always rich surroundings and what is on the road, as we pass from one to the other. Places always full of things to do and see, monuments, history, nature with a rustic charm and, obviously, hills planted with vines. According to stories, the results are tangible, with increasingly well-known and consumed products, with double-digit percentages of increase in tourist flows in the Asti area, incredible, but true and certified for 2023. Of course, growth came not only thanks to The street of Asti cheesesbut everything helps and, more than anything, it helps the telling, it helps the promotion, in this case online, of our beautiful territory set up, for some time, with indomitable perseverance by Palazzetti.
Promotion, territory and path among cheesemakers who have recently found an exemplary storytelling ally: Michele’s cheeses. Michele is a big man who travels six days a week between the markets of Langhe, Roero and Astigiano. He goes around with his full counter, full of incredible cheeses. The best of local and Piedmontese dairy production. The beauty is tasting and being told. Too passionate about his sector to keep inside the much he knows or knows about cheeses and surroundings, in the good choice of selecting only products for his mobile shop of small companies and shepherd cheesemakers, also trying to enhance them and contribute, from an always crowded market stall, to the protection of extraordinary territories, traditional practices and beautiful people. A counter that has long offered the well-known and always highly appreciated Roccaverano and the Coccona of Balzi, but little by little it was filled with many of the other delicacies of the cheese makers above The street of Asti cheeses, in particular those from goat’s and sheep’s milk, a current trend and preference of many. For every request for that robiola, here he is telling the size of the parish church of Cessole or the solid charm of the castle of Moasca. Better than a post, a leaflet or a press release to win over and direct some of the people who frequent the town markets towards the Asti area, often also made up of tourists hunting for humanity and real flavours.
