Our New Italian Cheese Range

Why we’re working with Guffanti

Our Managing Director, James Rutter, has been spending some time looking at how we can strengthen the Italian cheese selection at Paxton & Whitfield. Italy has no shortage of extraordinary cheese, of course. The challenge is finding the people who understand not only how a cheese is made, but how to select it well, mature it carefully and know exactly when it is ready to eat.

That is where Luigi Guffanti 1876 comes in. The family business began in 1876, when Luigi Guffanti started maturing Gorgonzola in an abandoned silver mine at Valganna in northern Italy. The mine offered something especially useful to a cheese maturer: naturally cool, humid and remarkably stable conditions. Nearly 150 years later, the business is still built around the same principle. Good cheese begins with good milk and good cheesemaking, but what happens afterwards matters enormously too.

Guffanti is best understood as an affineur, a specialist in selecting and maturing cheese. Young cheeses are chosen for their quality, character and potential to develop. From there, the work becomes one of patience. Cheeses are turned, brushed, rubbed, monitored and tasted as they mature in Guffanti’s cellars in Arona, Piedmont. There is no simple rule that says a cheese is ready after a certain number of days. Each one is judged individually and released when it has reached the point Guffanti believes shows it at its best.

We often talk about terroir in relation to the farm: the landscape, climate, breed and milk that help give a cheese its character. Affinage adds another layer. The conditions of the maturation cellar, the resident flora and the decisions made by the affineur all influence what happens next. A cheese might become softer, stronger, sweeter, more aromatic or more savoury as it matures. It is one of the reasons two cheeses that begin life in broadly similar ways can arrive at the counter tasting remarkably different.

The new selection James has been sourcing with Guffanti spans several very different Italian cheesemaking traditions. There are two expressions of Gorgonzola DOP: Dolce, with its soft, yielding texture and gentle blue character, and Piccante, which is firmer, longer-aged and considerably more assertive. Taleggio DOP brings the wonderfully aromatic character of a washed rind, with a rich, yielding paste beneath. From Veneto comes Vecchia Latteria, a firm cow’s milk cheese that Guffanti matures for around two years, allowing its initially sweet, fruity character to become deeper and gently spicy.

Pecorino Maremmano, from southern Tuscany, shows a gentler side of sheep’s milk cheese, with sweetness and balance rather than simply salt and intensity. From Puglia comes Fiaschette Bianche, a small pear-shaped stretched-curd cheese in the caciocavallo family, matured without smoking so that the character of the milk and the cheese itself remains at the forefront. The selection also includes Provolone Piccante, a longer-aged stretched-curd cheese with a firmer texture and increasingly savoury, spicy character as it matures.

For us, the appeal of Guffanti is straightforward. We want to work with people who know when a cheese is good, but also when it can become better. Their role sits somewhere between cheesemonger and maturer: seeking out good cheeses, understanding their potential, and then giving them the time and care needed to show that potential fully.

That makes them a natural fit for Paxton & Whitfield. Our job has always been to choose cheese well, care for it properly and sell it at the right moment. Working with an affineur who approaches cheese with the same patience and judgement gives us the opportunity to bring a broader range of Italian cheeses to our counters without losing sight of what matters most: how good they are to eat.

The new Guffanti selection will be arriving at Paxton & Whitfield soon.