Understanding the Craft of Real Taleggio

There is a moment of hesitation that comes with a properly ripe taleggio. You unwrap it and the smell arrives first, farmyard and pungent, the unmistakable perfume of a washed-rind cheese in its prime. Then you cut into it, past the tacky pink-orange rind, and find a soft, straw-coloured interior so tender it slumps gently onto the board. That contrast, between the assertive rind and the mild, buttery paste within, is the whole point of taleggio, and it is the product of a craft worth understanding.

A cheese from the valleys

Taleggio takes its name from a valley in Lombardy, and it is one of Italy’s oldest cheeses, made in the alpine foothills for many centuries. It belongs to a family known as stracchino, from the local word for tired, because the cheeses were traditionally made from the milk of cows tired after their long autumn descent from the high summer pastures. That seasonal rhythm shaped the cheese, and even now the best examples carry a sense of place, of particular pastures and particular hands. Its Alpine neighbour carries the same sense of pasture and season, as our piece on the craft of real Fontina explains.

To appreciate taleggio is to appreciate the wider world of artisan cheese, where terroir, season and craft all leave their mark. Anyone who takes pleasure in assembling a proper cheese board soon learns that a great washed-rind cheese like this is often the star of the selection, the one guests remember.

How it is made

The making begins, as all cheese does, with good milk, warmed and set with rennet into a soft curd. The curd is cut, gently drained and packed into the characteristic square moulds that give taleggio its distinctive slab shape. So far, so ordinary. What sets taleggio apart is what happens next: the washing. Washed rinds are only one route, and our piece on the craft of real emmental follows a very different cheese from milk to maturity.

As the young cheeses rest in cool, humid ageing rooms, they are regularly washed with a brine solution, sometimes over several weeks. This washing encourages the growth of particular bacteria on the surface, the cultures that create the sticky, ruddy rind and its powerful aroma. It is a controlled, deliberate cultivation of microbial life, closely tended, and it is the same broad principle of harnessing beneficial cultures that runs through the world of koji and fermentation. Cheese, at heart, is another triumph of managed microbiology.

The rind smells of the barnyard, but the paste tastes of cream and hazelnuts and a faint tang of fruit. Do not be deterred by the nose; the reward lies just beneath it.

Why real taleggio matters

Much of what is sold under the name is a pale imitation: young, rubbery, mild to the point of blandness, made to travel and to please timid palates. Real taleggio, properly made and properly aged, is a different animal entirely. Its interior is soft and yielding, sometimes almost runny at the edges when fully ripe, with a flavour that is buttery and mild at first but builds into something deeper, tangy and savoury with a lingering, faintly meaty finish.

Look for the marks of the genuine article: a rind that is tacky and pink-orange rather than dry and grey, an interior that gives when pressed, and a smell that announces itself honestly. The protected examples carry a stamp, but your nose and fingers will tell you more than any label. A good cheesemonger, the kind who also keeps a proper cheese trolley in mind, will let you smell and taste before you commit.

How to eat it

At its simplest, taleggio wants only good bread and perhaps a little honey or a few slices of ripe pear, the sweetness playing against the savoury rind. It is superb at the end of a meal, at room temperature so the paste softens fully, alongside a glass of something with enough body to stand up to it.

But it also cooks beautifully, and this is where many people fall for it. Melted, taleggio becomes gloriously oozy and rich, perfect folded through a risotto near the end, draped over polenta, melted onto a pizza or into a toasted sandwich. Its melting quality and depth make it one of the great cooking cheeses, adding a savoury luxury that a blander cheese never could. It sits happily among cured meats and pickles on a well-composed charcuterie board, its richness a foil to the salt of the meats.

How to buy and store it well

Taleggio is a cheese that rewards a little knowledge at the counter. Buy it cut fresh from a whole cheese rather than pre-wrapped where you can, since the shrink-wrapped versions tend to be younger, blander and sweatier, their rinds robbed of the air they need. Ask to see and smell the piece before it is cut: a good one should feel supple, its rind faintly damp and rosy, its aroma frank but not ammoniated. A sharp, stinging smell of ammonia is the one warning sign, a mark that the cheese has been kept too long or too warm and has tipped past its prime.

At home, treat it gently. Wrap it loosely in waxed or greaseproof paper rather than clingfilm, which suffocates the living rind and traps the moisture that turns it slimy, and keep it in the least cold part of the refrigerator. Bring it fully to room temperature for an hour or so before serving, so the paste relaxes into its proper softness and the flavours open up. A taleggio eaten straight from the cold is a shadow of the same cheese eaten warm, and the small patience of letting it come to temperature is repaid many times over on the palate.

Worth seeking out

Real taleggio is not hard to find if you know to ask for it, and it is worth the small effort of seeking out a proper example over the shrink-wrapped facsimile. Buy it from someone who cares, bring it to room temperature before eating, and give it the attention its craft deserves.

What you are really tasting is centuries of alpine tradition, the tired milk of the descending herds transformed by patient washing and ageing into one of the world’s great cheeses. It is pungent, tender, generous and utterly distinctive. For more on the ingredients and dishes worth understanding properly, the Dining & Drinks pages reward a browse. But start with a ripe wedge, some good bread, and a willingness to trust what lies beneath that formidable rind.