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Aspromonte goat cheeses

Slow Food Presidium · PAT · Cheeses · Calabria

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

Aspromonte is the massif that closes Calabria to the south, a hinge between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas; its name comes from Greek and means white mountain. It is a rugged land, where villages cling to the slopes and pastures climb among fiumare riverbeds, chestnut woods, holm oaks and Mediterranean scrub. Here, for centuries, the goat has been the animal of survival: hardy, tireless, able to feed even on the poorest plants.

Nothing of the goat was wasted. Besides milk and meat, its skin was used to make wineskins, zampogna bagpipes and tambourines. Goat's cheeses are the most direct expression of this pastoral culture, and they were once made with the milk of local goats, selected to adapt ever better to the slopes: the animals recognised today as the Aspromontana breed.

The goat's cheeses of Aspromonte are a Slow Food Presidium, and caprino dell'Aspromonte is listed among Calabria's traditional products.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Caprini d'Aspromonte · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

The Presidium area covers the mountain municipalities of the Aspromonte National Park, in the province of Reggio Calabria. The goats are usually raised semi-wild, often together with sheep, and the technique is handed down by word of mouth, following a very old tradition.

The raw milk, freshly drawn, is warmed and curdled with kid rennet. After curdling, the curd is finely broken, placed in baskets of rush or plastic and pressed by hand. Small cheeses can be eaten fresh or after a few days; the larger ones age for up to a year.

The same work also yields ricotta, fresh or salted and aged, which Slow Food considers another highlight of Aspromonte's dairy tradition.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Caprini d'Aspromonte

How to recognise it

The cheeses are generally small, between 800 grams and 2 kilos, and are eaten fresh or after a few days. The larger ones, from three kilos upwards, can age for up to a year: the flavour becomes bold, with vegetal notes and a long finish recalling the mountain pastures.

Among Aspromonte's goat's cheeses there is one recognisable at a glance: musulupa. It is a cheese pressed in black mulberry wood moulds that may take the shape of a female figure or a breast, with roots in Greek-Byzantine pastoral culture. It was made for Easter, as a wish of fertility for the beloved woman.

The risk that these cheeses disappear is real: the depopulation of inland areas has reduced the number of shepherds, and the Aspromontana goat is threatened by the spread of more productive breeds.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Caprini d'Aspromonte

Where to taste it

The goat's cheeses of Aspromonte are found in the mountain villages of the Aspromonte National Park, inland from Reggio Calabria, where the few remaining cheesemakers work the milk of their own flocks, often mixed goats and sheep. It is a journey among fiumare riverbeds, chestnut and holm oak woods and villages clinging to the slopes, in the massif that forms a hinge between the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian.

A convenient gateway is Gambarie, at 1,320 metres, seat of the park: Italia.it suggests a cycling itinerary that runs from here down to Reggio Calabria by way of Bagaladi, the park's southern gate. Visitors staying at our Scilla destination, on the Costa Viola, can start from Reggio to head up into the mountains.

Easter is the time when tradition calls for musulupa. Seeking out these cheeses where they are made is also the most direct way to support the Presidium's work to recover the Aspromontana goat and pass the cheesemakers' knowledge on to new generations.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Caprini d'Aspromonte · Italia.it — Itinerario da Gambarie a Reggio Calabria · Italia.it — Scilla

Protection

When

Where

Calabria