28-04-2016
Mimmo La Vecchia, to the right, with his son Benito: the passion for the family dairy business at Il Casolare di Alvignano (Caserta) is genetic
Mimmo La Vecchia’s cheese factory Il Casolare, in Alvignano (Caserta) perhaps is not a big discovery, an unknown name to mozzarella enthusiasts. Franco Pepe was one of the first to give it visibility, using its products on most of the delicious pizzas in the menu of his restaurant in Caiazzo, Pepe in Grani, but Franco’s father was already getting his supplies from the La Vecchia family for his pizzeria. Their mozzarella is considered one of the best available and, it’s no coincidence that only a few days ago, during the 2016 edition of Formaggio in Villa, an event dedicated to the best Italian cheese, this nice farm from Alto Casertano conquered the first place in the Italian Cheese Awards, in the “pasta filata” category. In order to reach the cheese factory you must follow the soft bends of a road weaving into the intense green of this beautiful part of the province of Caserta, and you can recognise it by the constant coming and going of the buyers, tidily queuing in front of the counter. Right behind that, the large basins in which the delicious seraphic mozzarellas produced by the La Vecchia family are resting. On the side, in a small glass case, one can notice the other cheese available too. And a small plate indicates that, also at the very recent Italian Cheese Awards, Il Casolare won the second place in a different category, aromatised cheese, with another product: Fabula Affinato al Sidro [Refined in Cider], one of the three soft buffalo milk cheese on which Mimmo La Vecchia is making very successful experiments since late 2014.
The first buffalo milk soft cheese produced at Il Casolare
Fabula Refined in Cider: a very successful experiment
Local aromas: buffalo milk cheese refined with Casavecchia
Reviews, recommendations and trends from Italy, signed by all the authors of Identità Golose
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Journalist, based in Milan. At 8 years old, he received a Springsteen record as a gift, and nothing was the same since. Music and food are his passions. Author and broadcaster at Radio Popolare since 1997, since 2014 he became part of the staff of Identità Golose Instagram: @NiccoloVecchia