Pecorino Toscano

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Pecorino toscano is a firm sheep's milk cheese from Tuscany that has held PDO status since 1996. It is the third most produced sheep's milk cheese in Italy, behind pecorino romano and pecorino sardo.

Bijltjespad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Key Facts

Country of Origin	Italy
Specific Origin	Tuscany, some municipalities of Umbria and Lazio
Protection	PDO (1996)
Milk Type	Sheep's milk
Milk Treatment	Raw or pasteurized
Fat Content	At least 40% (soft), At least 45% (semihard)
Rind	Straw-colored
Texture	Soft or Semihard
Flavor	Fragrant
Colors	White to straw-colored
Forms	Cylindrical with straight or slightly convex sides
Age	At least 20 days (soft), Four months (semihard)
Rennet Type	Calf rennet
Also Known As	Lunense, marzolino

What is Pecorino Toscano Cheese?

Pecorino toscano, meaning Tuscan pecorino, is a firm sheep's milk cheese from Tuscany. It has held protected designation of origin (PDO) status since 1996.

The cheese is old enough to appear in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, where he describes several stages of its production and calls it Lunense, a name apparently taken from the territory of Lunigiana. Another early name was marzolino, from marzo, the Italian word for March, the month when production traditionally started.

In 1475 Bartolomeo Platina put Etruscan marzolino on the same level as Parmesan. He wrote that two Italian cheeses competed for first place: marzolino, named by the Etruscans because it was made in Etruria in March, and Parmesan from the Cisalpine region, also called maggengo because it was produced in May.

Today this style of pecorino is made across Tuscany and in several neighboring districts of Umbria and Lazio. A 1997 estimate from the Italian dairy producers' association Assolatte put annual output at 5,060 metric tons (4,980 long tons; 5,580 short tons), third among Italian sheep's milk cheeses after pecorino romano and pecorino sardo.