The Pecorino Toscano DOP pecorino Toscano is an Italian cheese made with sheep's milk, produced mainly in Tuscany, which has obtained the Protected Designation of Origin.
Pecorino is a generic term and, as such, can be used to refer to any cheese made from sheep's milk. In Italy, there is a wide variety of pecorino cheeses, all characteristic of particular areas or specific breeds of sheep.
Pecorino, in Tuscany and further south, is commonly called cacio.
The first historical references date back to Roman times, in particular in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, which describes for the first time the production of cheese in the area of Luni, now known as Lunigiana. In the 1400s, Pecorino was called cacio marzolino because it was produced from March throughout the spring.
Some accounts describe it as one of the most appreciated cheeses at the banquets of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
The regulations establish all stages of production, from milking, which must be exclusively from sheep from the areas of origin (Tuscany and some neighboring municipalities in Lazio and Liguria), to aging.
The Pecorino Toscano aged it is a cheese with a minimum maturation period of 120 days but can be aged for up to a year.
Only calf rennet is used and the salting process lasts only one day.
Cylindrical in shape, with a thin yellow rind enclosing an irresistible pale straw-yellow paste with a fragrant, intense and slightly spicy flavor, it is a product that must be tried.