Bertagni Dairy has remained one of the precious few custodians of an ancient breed: the Garfagnina Sheep.
The Garfagnina Sheep is a robust and wild breed of Italian sheep of Apennine stock. Once present with tens of thousands of specimens on the pastures of the Apennines, by the 1980s it had been reduced to so few that it was included in the endangered heritage breeds. Today, unfortunately, only a hundred or so are left, distributed among a precious few herds in the province of Lucca: one of these is Verano Bertagni's dairy, which performs the dual function of shepherd and cheesemaker in the special context of Garfagnana.
Garfagnana, literally "big forest," has been called the green island of Tuscany: it is a valley that, although close to important historical centers such as Lucca, Pisa, Florence and the glittering and worldly Versilia, has remained closed in on itself, living its own history and building a distinct identity that it still retains today. Approaching this area from impervious mountain roads, one is amazed at the lush expanse of its forests, the vertiginous rock faces, and the numerous, small towns that characterize the valley.
The Garfagnina sheep lives free in the grasslands of this verdant land straddling the Apuan Alps and the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. Able to feed daily on fresh grass and because of its genetic characteristics it is able to give milk that is sweet to the palate. Hence a sheep's milk cheese, fresh as the Taula or aged as the Tuada, that exudes the fragrances of the Garfagnana land, bearer of the intrinsic value of an ancient tradition saved from oblivion.
