Michele Lanza, a Bay Area cheese distributor, was raised in the southern Italian region of Basilicata. Americans rarely visit this area because it is remote, primarily agricultural and not particularly prosperous. People raise sheep there and make sheep's milk cheese, as their ancestors have done for centuries, until they grow weary of scraping by and move north to find a factory job.
For Lanza, whose grandfather was a cheese maker, the local pecorino is the taste of his childhood. Although he admits that he didn't like the robust cheese as a child, he has spent the past few years trying to raise its profile. About a year ago, Pecorino di Filiano – named for a village in the Potenza province of Basilicata – received its PDO from the European Union, the "protected designation of origin" status that defines how and where the cheese is made and safeguards its name.
Lanza encouraged the local dairy farmers to organize and apply for the PDO, an eight-year process, in this case. "I wanted to try to get this cheese out of the local market," says Lanza, who was frustrated that even other Italians did not know it.
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