The “Quesos Dop Italianos” festival, a journey of taste and promotion of four typical Italian kinds of cheese in Spain – Asiago PDO, Gorgonzola PDO, Pecorino Sardo PDO, and Taleggio PDO – ended last weekend in Madrid.
The Quesos Dop Italianos festival was made up of three separate events between Barcelona and Madrid, from March to May. Organizers wanted to make four Italian dairy specialties well-known and appreciated by Spanish professionals and consumers.
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With this joint activity, the four Protection Consortia promoting their respective denominations aim to accelerate exports in an increasingly attractive market. In 2022, Spain ranked third among EU importers of Italian cheeses after France and Germany, with an annual consumption of 33,478 tons. Growth has been continuous and steady for four years now: 28,410 tons in 2021, 23,655 tons in 2020, and 24,399 tons in 2019.
QUESOS DOP ITALIANOS BY THE NUMBERS
The Spanish tour kicked off in Barcelona in March with an original culinary event involving eight of the city’s leading restaurants. It attracted some 11,000 guests in this first phase alone. Nearly 5,700 special dishes specifically created for the event were sold.
Madrid’s Salón de Gourmets (April 17-20), the most important Spanish exhibition dedicated to high-quality gastronomy, was also a record-breaking event with 120,000 visitors from more than 60 countries. Italian gastronomic specialties played a prominent role, being placed in a large exhibition area of 450 square meters managed by the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Spain. During the event, 10,000 portions of cheese were offered.
Finally, during the Italian Cheese Week held in Madrid from May 18 to 27, the public had the opportunity to taste Asiago PDO, Gorgonzola PDO, Pecorino Sardo PDO, and Taleggio PDO as part of the creative culinary offerings of Ristorante Poncio by Willy Moya, former executive chef of Hotel Alfonso XIII, Cantinery in Istanbul, and Gran Hotel Inglés Madrid. The chef is a great lover of international cuisine, especially Italian. He offered his guests a natural cheese platter and a six-course menu. It was an authentic Hispanic-Italian cultural pairing aimed at highlighting the four cheeses, their different types and aging, organoleptic characteristics, and multiple uses in the kitchen. During the nine-day promotion, Poncio hosted the initiative’s launch conference with 20 journalists from major Spanish newspapers, welcoming more than 1,000 visitors, and managing more than 500 full menus.