The senese heart further to an immense variety of oils, the most valuable wines and grappe, gives the opportunity to choose a great selection of cheeses of hight quality , like "pecorino di Pienza", or "marzolino",famous in all the world .We propose some famous chesses of our area , that you can taste coming to visit Siena:

Marzolino di Pienza al Peperoncino e al Tartufo

The cheese of sheep was done to Pienza and in other zones of Tuscany, in the last centuries his name was "marzolino" , because it was produced with milk, milked in spring, when pastures offered the tenderest and perfumed grass.
The production came by hand made from the peasants, that gave to the cheese
with their hands the typical form of a ball, then they left the cheese to dry on fir-tree table. The tradition of the "marzolino" has been resumption with the production of a particularly delicate cheese, that conserve all the scent of the grass pastured.

Riserva

The first recorded time that pecorino cheese was eaten with a fruit preserve was at a pre-Lenten banquet in Siena in 1719. Today it is quite normal to eat pecorino with honey or with a fruit jam. The tuscan country families, for ancient tradition, had the habit to conserve the "pecorino" in orce of terracotta (said locally "ziri"). The ziris come anoint with olive oil and separate with walnut leafs, with this system they obtained a long seasoned cheese and particularly taste, throught the terracotta the cheese could "breath" and at the same time absorbed the natural scent of the walnut leafts. This ancient tradition, typical of pienza and the territory of the val d'orcia, has been taken back for creating the "reserve foglianoce", a cheese that gives back to all the suggestion of an ancient taste.

Pecorino Riserva Morchiato

The "morchia" is the dense layer that remains on the found of the "terracotta",
cheese and olive oils togher in the terracotta for all the winter, in spring the farmer used smear on the cheese oil and firewood ash , in order to create a natural crust that allowed a long seasoning preserving the integrate taste and parfume.

Pecorino al Pomodoro

All the various Tuscan pecorino sheep's cheeses come under the regulation of a single denomination, first DOC in 1986, then DOP in 1996. One of the most ancient methods in order to conserve the taste and parfume of "pecorino "cheese, is to make more and more intense his flavor , they spread the forms of cheese with olive oils and sauce of tomato. The treatment is done with hand spreading the forms one by one, this usage started when cheese has around two months and his "pasta" is still tender and fresh. This confers to the pecorino the classical red color with a peel protective. The procedure is typical of the "pecorino to average sesoning".

Pecorino Sott'Olio

The "pecorino sott'olio" takes back an ancient country tradition, that was born from the necessity to preserve for the winter the cheese done in the good season. This cheese is cut to small pieces and put in "extra olive oil" togheter with aromatic grasses chili pepper and pepper, all these ingredients give a savory taste. Excellent as appetizer, togheter with cheeses and "tuscany crostini", with red and white young wines .