The European Union grants the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) to this cheese made with goat’s milk in Catalonia
Garrotxa cheese already has the European seal of quality. This was announced last weekend by the Councilor for Climate Action, David Mascort, in the framework of the Artisan and Catalan Cheese Forum in Girona. The Generalitat received the notification from Brussels at the end of the previous year and has now made it public.
The IGP is one of the three labels granted by the European Union to distinguish a product linked to a geographical area, which is responsible for its production. The other two are the DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) and the ETP (Guaranteed Traditional Specialty).
A cheese that goes beyond the region that gives it its name
Although it is called Garrotxa, the cheese is not only made in the region of the same name. Its production, as specified by the European badge, covers the entire Catalan territory. Currently, there are a dozen producers who make Garrotxa and only one (Mas Claparol de Sant Feliu de Pallerols) is in the region. For this reason, they have all come together to obtain the PGI and prevent other places outside Catalonia from making this cheese.
How was Garrotxa cheese born?
Garrotxa cheese, as described by the European recognition achieved, is a cheese “made exclusively with whole goat’s milk, of mixed coagulation, and with the rind covered with a layer of greyish fungus giving the ashy appearance of a flowery skin” .
The product does not respond to any old recipe, but to the coincidence of events that happened in the region. At the beginning of the 80s, neo-rural farmers in the area asked cheese experts for advice on making a matured cheese that would make use of the excess milk they had. The experts recovered a formula for a matured goat cheese that had been made on the site in the past and added technological know-how of the time. This is where the name Garrotxa came from.
The creation of Garrotxa cheese is therefore closely linked to the emigration of urban youth to rural and mountain areas in the 1970s and 1980s. It was one of these groups of young people who dedicated themselves to livestock farming in the region who pushed forward the formula that has now been protected.
At the same time, other neo-rural farmers started making artisanal cheeses following courses at the agricultural school at Torre Marimon in Caldes de Montbui where Garrotxa Cheese was taught.
