Caseificio Di Nucci

The people behind it

Caseificio Di Nucci is the story of a family of shepherds and cheesemakers from Alto Molise. According to the company website the Di Nucci family, originally from Capracotta, the highest town in the Apennines as the 9colonne agency notes, has made cheese since 1662: the first documented ancestor is Lonardo Di Nucci, a shepherd and cheesemaker at the end of the seventeenth century, and the craft has passed through ten generations, within the culture of transhumance and the drove roads (tratturi). In the early twentieth century grandfather Giovanni was already selling his cheeses to shops in Agnone; in the 1950s Antonio Di Nucci and his wife Ida moved to the town and set up the modern dairy.

Today the owner is Franco Di Nucci, Antonio's son, whom the website describes as the creator of the first cheesemaking plant in Agnone and who strengthened the network of milk suppliers and trained local staff. Working with him are his wife Rosetta, in administration, and their children Serena, head of marketing and sales, Antonia, who runs the museum, and Francesco, head of production and quality. In 2016 Serena received the special "Donne del latte" (Women of Milk) award at the Italian Cheese Awards.

Sources: Caseificio Di Nucci — Storia della famiglia Di Nucci · Caseificio Di Nucci — sito ufficiale · 9colonne — Di Nucci cheese factory is among the top 100 cheese manufacturers in the world · Caseificio Di Nucci — Premi e riconoscimenti

What they make

The house's signature cheese is Caciocavallo di Agnone, a traditional stretched-curd product. The website offers it at three ages: semi-aged, up to three months, with a pale rind and a soft paste; aged, from four to eight months, with a more decided flavour; and extra-aged, over twelve months in a tuff-stone cellar, with a paste the website describes for its unexpected meltiness and complex finish.

Alongside the caciocavallo the dairy makes stracciata, the hand-stretched fresh cheese that Scatti di Gusto recommended eating in a sandwich with prosciutto, then braids and scamorza of caciocavallo curd, caciosalame, raw-milk cow's cheeses, manteca, salted ricotta and birillo. There is also a line of special cheeses: some with the sweet dried pepper of Altino and some with flakes of black truffle. Besides the plant, the website lists a shop in Via Roma in Agnone and one at Corso Garibaldi 22 in Isernia.

Sources: Caseificio Di Nucci — Caciocavallo di Agnone P.A.T. · Caseificio Di Nucci — Formaggi particolari · Scatti di Gusto — 17 indirizzi imperdibili per dire che il Molise esiste · Caseificio Di Nucci — sito ufficiale

Ingredients and territory

Everything starts from the raw cow's milk of a supply chain that the website calls entirely local, traceable and certified: 15 farms in the countryside around Agnone, Belmonte del Sannio, the upper Trigno valley and Capracotta, between 800 and 1,400 metres above sea level, with milk collected every day of the year. The website recounts that Antonio, who collects the milk, leaves the plant at five in the morning in the milk van to make the round of the farms.

The caciocavallo is made by hand: raw milk, rennet, whey starter and salt, then the stretching of the curd and the drying, as Dissapore also confirms in its report on the 2022 Italian Cheese Awards. The cheeses dry in rooms ventilated by the winds from the Capracotta mountains and then rest in natural cellars of Agnone rapillo tuff stone, where temperature and humidity favour noble moulds; here the caciocavallo can mature for up to 24 months.

Sources: Caseificio Di Nucci — Filiera locale certificata · Caseificio Di Nucci — Caciocavallo di Agnone P.A.T. · Caseificio Di Nucci — Stagionatura e affinamento · Dissapore — Italian Cheese Awards 2022: fra i premiati il Puzzone di Moena DOP e il Caciocavallo di Agnone

Recognition

The most recent recognitions come from the Italian Cheese Awards, the national competition for the best Italian cheeses. In the 2022 edition, held in Bologna on 15 October, the Di Nucci Caciocavallo di Agnone won the aged stretched-curd category, as Dissapore reports; in the 2019 edition, in Verona on 27 October, the same category went to the dairy's aged Caciocavallo di Agnone, according to the same outlet.

The company website also lists earlier awards: best cheese in the aged stretched-curd category at the 2016 Italian Cheese Awards, best Italian cheese 2017 for the stracciata, and the Supergold with the title of Best Italian Cheese at the 2013 World Cheese Awards in Birmingham for the aged caciocavallo. In February 2026 the 9colonne agency reported the dairy's inclusion among the hundred best cheese producers in the world in TasteAtlas's selection, and notes that the family is an official supplier to the Vatican.

Sources: Dissapore — Italian Cheese Awards 2022: fra i premiati il Puzzone di Moena DOP e il Caciocavallo di Agnone · Dissapore — Italian Cheese Awards 2019: ecco i formaggi vincitori · Caseificio Di Nucci — Premi e riconoscimenti · Caseificio Di Nucci — sito ufficiale · 9colonne — Di Nucci cheese factory is among the top 100 cheese manufacturers in the world

Going there

The plant is in the Giovanni Paolo II craft area of Agnone, at lot 8, five minutes by car from the town centre or a quarter of an hour on foot, according to the website; the dairy moved here in June 2000. The website offers several guided visit formats, to be booked through the online form: a visit to the dairy with the workshop and the ageing caves, two cheese tastings, a full visit including the company museum, and a hands-on workshop called "Esperienza mani in pasta" (hands in the curd).

The Museum of Cheesemaking Art and Transhumance tells the story of the family and the pastoral culture of Alto Molise, and rounds off a day in Agnone, the town of caciocavallo. For information the website gives the phone number 0865 77288 and the email address info@caseificiodinucci.it. Those who do not make it up to Alto Molise can find the cheeses in the shops in Agnone and Isernia.

Sources: Caseificio Di Nucci — Visite guidate e degustazioni · Caseificio Di Nucci — Storia della famiglia Di Nucci · Caseificio Di Nucci — Contatti · Caseificio Di Nucci — sito ufficiale

Products and flavours

Caciocavallo di Agnone

PAT · Cheeses

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Altino sweet pepper

Slow Food Presidium · PAT · Fruit, vegetables and pulses

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Agnone caciocavallo

Pasture milk, hand stretching, ageing in hanging pairs: the caciocavallo of Upper Molise, with stracciata, Capracotta pecorino, the town of bells and copper and the transhumance trails.

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Photo: Jan-Tore Egge / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The place

Agnone

The Pontifical Marinelli Foundry and its museum, copper and wrought-iron workshops, and the December ’Ndocciata.

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Photo: Gianfranco Vitolo / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The region

Molise