Bresaola dela Vatellina PGI

TAST­ING NOTES FROM THE CURATOR

This beef cold cut has a sweet, musty smell, and is lean and more ten­der than oth­er types of cured meats.

The meat is com­plete­ly and thor­ough­ly defat­ted and sea­soned with a dry rub of salt and spices (usu­al­ly juniper, nut­meg, and cin­na­mon). After a few days of cur­ing, it’s dried for one to three months.

Dur­ing aging, it los­es about 40% of its weight, and becomes hard and the col­or turns a dark red, almost pur­ple. Cut very thin­ly and served chilled or at room tem­per­a­ture, this halal cold cut is salty to the taste, with hints of gar­lic, pep­per, juniper, and oth­er spices.

PAIR­INGS AND PREPARATION

Bre­sao­la is incred­i­ble enjoyed as is or as antipasti. In fact, it’s high­ly sug­gest­ed you eat it with as few addi­tion­al trim­mings as pos­si­ble. Pair with an aro­mat­ic white wine.

Or do as the Ital­ians do! Throw on some arugu­la, a bit of lemon, a driz­zle of olive oil and some black pep­per, and you have a sim­ple, but incred­i­bly tasty salad.

MOUN­TAIN MATTERS

A very big part of what makes bre­sao­la such a unique Ital­ian cold cut is the place it comes from. The val­ley of Val­tel­li­na is a nar­row area that runs between Italy and Switzer­land in the cen­tral Alps.

Val­tel­li­na is unique in that it runs trans­ver­sal instead of lon­gi­tu­di­nal like oth­er moun­tain val­leys. Because of this, it expe­ri­ences more sun­light, and milder cli­mate than oth­er alpine areas.

The val­ley is also near Lake Como, mak­ing it con­stant­ly well-ven­ti­lat­ed. This unique com­bi­na­tion of dry cli­mate and mod­er­ate tem­per­a­tures make the ide­al con­di­tions for the beef cold cut to cure in a prop­er, grad­ual manner.

Storage Instructions

Vac­u­um-sealed packs of hand-carved cured meats can last up to five months in the refrig­er­a­tor (nev­er the freez­er). Once the pack is opened, they’re best enjoyed with­in the day.