Forever Monte Enebro

Earthy but tart with an impressively long finish; Dense as putty, with a fine, matte quality; A crosswise style that never ceases to amaze.

Quick Facts

Country of Origin: Spain
Milk Type/Treatment: Pasteurized Goat
Rennet Type: Animal

The Flavor Experience

Monte Enebro is no joke. The paste is dense with the fine, matte texture of putty. The robust earthy flavors are unique for a goat’s cheese, but the expected tang is still there, and boy, does it have a long finish in this specimen. Owing to a rind made of the blue-cheese mold, the robust flavors of this genuinely unique style (it had only one producer) will not flee from your palate.

The Story

Two species of the same genus, Penicillium camemberti and Penicillium roqueforti, are responsible for two vastly different but significant cheese styles. P. camemberti, applied to the surface of the cheese, produces the fluffy white rind of bloomy-rinded Bries, while P. roqueforti, stirred into the curd and blooming in the body of the cheese, gives us the sharp, blue-green veins of blue cheese. Monte Enebro fills in the blank squares in this diagram. P. roqueforti is applied to the surface of the cheese, where it ripens from the outside in, like bloomy-rind, but brings the piquancy of a blue. Weird!

Usage Tips

Nutella has long been our go-to for Monte Enebro. The chocolate clings beautifully to the quiet blue-cheese quality of the cheese, and Nutella’s gloss is stark contrast to the Monte Enebro’s matte finish. Forget crumbling goat cheese into a salad ala 1993. Instead, build a salad around a thick slab of this cheese. It can hold up to peppery Sicilian olive oil, like Olio Verde, and some serious greens, like endive or arugula. A thin slice of the smoky Bresaola from Larchmont is a welcome addition.