Visiting the alchemist-cheese producer

Is it true? On the Internet, an increasing number of stories turning up one’s nose are appearing, illustrating the incredible story of a man: a successful photographer in trendy Milan, a hunter in Kazakhstan, a mechanic, a chimpanzee-man perched on a tree for two weeks to take pictures of animals, a crafts beer salesman in community centres, with a non-legal warehouse but defended by gypsies from local officers. And then: a mould stealer, with swabs scattered around dairy farms and grottos, mister-adrenalin, satisfied with two hours of sleep per night, a nervy follower of the Paris-Dakar, a self-taught researcher of the methods used by Trappist monks.

Seems like portrait depicted by an excellent marketing office, the planned creation of an adventurous life. Far too border line: so is it true? One starts to doubt. Yet Marco Bernini’s cheese is really delicious…

So here we are in Pozzol Groppo, 389 inhabitants in Piedmont. You can tell it’s 380 metres above the sea level, the landscape has something wild in it, the tidy hills below leave space for untamed woods, scattered houses, a rural element that seems authentic, even though it’s not even 80 km from Milan. Is this the classic buen retiro for those escaping the city?

The protagonist, now 51, thus tells his story: «I had this warehouse in Milano Lambrate: from the age of 16 to 36 I used it as a photo studio. A good business. Then came the recession, the transformation into a micro-brewery, 30K bottles per year where once stood shooting sets, 6 different types I supplied to three gypsy camps». Yet the expenses were still to high.

He ends up in the UK in 2000, meets a diviner friend who suggests he buys a farm in Ca’ d’Andrino, in Pozzol Groppo. Bernini seizes the opportunity, his intention is to move the brewery there, then things turn out badly once again and… «I didn’t have the money to make everything legal, so I bought a flock of goats».

Andrea Ribaldone, beside me, observes the unfolding of this story with a smile. He was the one to take us here during this trip to the Tortona area, because it was indeed at I Due Buoi that we first tasted Bernini’s blue cheese. In fact the chef is the critical conscience of the daredevil dairy-producer, the person who took the task of guiding his continuous experiments towards the creation of a sort of “gastronomic cheese”.

Adventure, however, is urging: «I learnt. I studied. Where? On books and a lot on the Internet too. In the end I understood what I had to do was not much different from beer-making, it is there that I take the fermentation starters. Today I perfectly control the process, drawing from the knowledge of Trappist monks: I start a blue-cheese process, check the acidity, use methods that are similar to brus. Then a world unfolds». This is planned cheese, the chef ends. Paired with its extraordinary result.

Craftsmanship is the unbreakable border, «beyond 35 kilos of cheese per day you cannot handle the ph». While quantity has a limited future, quality is a whole prairie to be explored. Today Bernini has 130 types of blue cheese in his cv, born in the most varied ways. Many more are to come. There’s the “tandoori” cheese. The one with the anchovy and capers aroma. The one with barley malt. One with walnut hull inside. What can we say? They have, in fact, a magical taste, they’re fabulous. They’re perfectly matched with stories and with cooking.