Picon Bejes Tresviso is an extraordinary blue cheese that is made high in the mountains of Cantabria. At 900 metres above sea level, Javier Campo has made his home with his dairy and his herd of cows. The remote village of Tresviso has long been isolated; the construction of the first real road to the village took place as recently as 1990. The farm is located in the Picos de Europa National Park and is also in a Unesco Biosphere Reserve (globally recognised sites of learning where people and nature thrive together in extraordinary ecosystems). The natives of Tresviso have long made their cheese in splendid isolation, but their cheese only began to gain wider recognition when Javier’s mother, Teresa, won a gold medal at the International Food Fair in 1985.
Javier puts the welfare of his cows and the quality of their milk above all other considerations. The cows graze outside for as much of the year as possible, foraging on the wide diversity of grasses, flowers and herbs that grow naturally in the mountain meadows. Once made, the cheeses are matured in the naturally occurring limestone caves, where the blue veins develop their characteristically piquant taste. As a small scale, traditionally hand-made cheese, the interior can vary from intensely blue to more lightly speckled, and is even quite often blue in one half, but white on the other. Javier does not aim for the consistency of a factory-made specimen, but glories in the beautiful variety he sees in his cheeses. In any case, they are always delicious, with a lively character and a sharp, mineral quality, which remains well balanced. More refined than its famous compatriot, Cabrales, it is a must try for dedicated blue cheese lovers.
*A whole Picon Bejes Treviso weighs 2.3kg. Smaller weights are a cut of a whole cheese.
