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Cheese from Spain, eastern Asturias

Gamonéu PDOGamonéu

Raw cow, sheep or goat milk, alone or mixed, is curdled at 22–30 °C, cut small, moulded and dry-salted. The fresh cheeses are smoked over native hardwood until the rind turns burnt sienna, then ripen in limestone caves, where Penicillium from the cave may creep in from the rind as faint blue-green streaks.

Fully documentedCheese2 monthsPDO (EU, 2008; specification amended 2024)Family: Blue-veined cheese family (Roquefort as template)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe specification fixes limits, not a recipe. Wheels weigh 0.5–10 kg.
Raw milk of cow, sheep or goat, alone or mixedFrom registered herds fed mainly by grazing; del Puerto cheese must mix two or three kinds[gamoneu-spec2024]
Animal rennet or another authorised milk-clotting enzyme[gamoneu-spec2024]
Salt (sodium chloride)Rubbed on the top and bottom faces[gamoneu-spec2024]
Ash, heath, beech or other native hardwoodFor smoking[gamoneu-spec2024]
No added mouldsFungi and yeasts must come from the ripening caves, never added to the milk[gamoneu-spec2024]
Starterno mould or yeast is added; they come from the ripening caves

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 months

Start
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What changes: Starting material: raw milk of cows, sheep and goats from mountain pastures

Step 1 of 6
Collect raw milk from grazing herds
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Penicillium
Moulds

Feed from outside the protected area may not exceed 50 % of dry matter in a year.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raw cow, sheep or goat milk, alone or mixed, is curdled at 22–30 °C, cut small, moulded and dry-salted. The fresh cheeses are smoked over native hardwood until the rind turns burnt sienna, then ripen in limestone caves, where Penicillium from the cave may creep in from the rind as faint blue-green streaks. Made in 6 steps over 2 months. The longest step, ripen in limestone caves, takes at least 2 months (European Commission 2024) and runs at up to 12 °C (European Commission 2024). Penicillium from the caves, which may bloom blue-green in the paste near the rind does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 2 monthsSet[gamoneu-spec2024]Ripen in limestone caves
Temperatureup to 12 °CSet[gamoneu-spec2024]Ripen in limestone caves

What makes this one different

Gamonéu is smoked before it goes into the cave, and no mould or yeast may be added to the milk. Any blue comes only from cave Penicillium working in from the rind, so it stays a faint edge instead of the full veining of Cabrales.

Milk
Raw cow, sheep or goat milk, alone or mixed
Paste
Hard or semi-hard, crumbly; at least 45 % fat and 25 % protein in dry matter, at least 55 % dry matter, pH 4.5–6.5
Ripening
At least 2 months from curdling (3 months over 7 kg), with at least 30 days in a cave
Size
Wheel 6–18 cm high, 10–35 cm across, 0.5–10 kg

Related ferments

Variants

  • Gamonéu del PuertoMade from late spring to early autumn in small cheese rooms on the high pastures of Cangas de Onís and Onís, from a mix of at least two of the three milks of herds grazing the listed pastures.
  • Valley GamonéuCheese made outside the del Puerto rules. The earlier specification labelled it del Valle; the 2024 amendment keeps only the del Puerto term.

Safety

This is a raw-milk cheese. ANSES names Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli as hazards of raw-milk cheeses. It advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than cooked pressed ones such as Comté; Gamonéu is uncooked. ANSES says thorough cooking, as in an oven dish, removes the risk, but cutting off the rind does not.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

A letter to King Philip IV in 1641 about grazing land says the cheese fed the poor of the district, and Madoz's geographical dictionary mentions it as a staple. Herders far from markets turned their mixed-flock milk into cheese and ripened it in the mountain caves.

  1. [gamoneu-spec2024] European Commission 2024, Publication of an application for approval of a non-minor amendment to the product specification, 'Gamonéu' PDO-ES-0308-AM01, Official Journal C, C/2024/674 (approved by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/1227)spec
  2. [sabater2026] Sabater C. et al. 2026, Metagenomics to assess authenticity and traceability of Asturian Gamonéu PDO cheese, International Journal of Food Microbiology 460:111939 (abstract)paper
  3. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov