Price range: £3.85 through £23.10
Ossau-Iraty PDO is a classic sheep’s milk cheese from the western Pyrenees. Firm and buttery with a lovely natural sweetness, it develops nutty hazelnut flavours, gentle fruitiness and a beautifully savoury finish as it matures.
Ossau-Iraty is one of France’s great sheep’s milk cheeses, made in the western Pyrenees where the Basque Country meets Béarn.
It’s a firm, pressed cheese with a natural rind and a wonderfully buttery, nutty flavour. If you think sheep’s milk cheese automatically means something strong or salty, Ossau-Iraty might surprise you. There’s a lovely sweetness to the milk, with gentle fruitiness and plenty of nuttiness as the cheese matures.
Even the name tells you where it comes from: Ossau for the Ossau Valley in Béarn and Iraty for the Iraty Forest in the Basque Country.
Two landscapes and two cheesemaking traditions brought together in one cheese.
Sheep farming and cheesemaking have been part of life in the western Pyrenees for thousands of years.
For generations, shepherds moved their flocks between lower ground and high mountain pastures as the seasons changed, a practice known as transhumance. Turning the sheep’s milk into cheese was an obvious way of preserving that valuable milk, creating firm wheels that could be matured and kept.
Over centuries, these local cheesemaking traditions developed on both sides of the region, eventually becoming the cheese we now know as Ossau-Iraty.
It’s one of those wonderful examples of cheese existing for a very practical reason long before anybody thought about putting it onto a fancy cheeseboard.
Ossau-Iraty received French AOC protection in 1980 and is now protected by PDO status.
And, as always, PDO means rules.
The cheese must be produced within its designated area in the western Pyrenees and can only be made using milk from three traditional local breeds of sheep: Manech Tête Noire, Manech Tête Rousse and Basco-Béarnaise.
The milk is transformed into firm wheels which are then matured until the rind develops naturally and the flavours inside begin to deepen.
Those rules protect far more than simply the name of a cheese. They help maintain the relationship between the sheep, farmers, cheesemakers and a tradition that has developed over generations.
Take those things away and you might still make a very good sheep’s milk cheese.
But it wouldn’t be Ossau-Iraty.
Ossau-Iraty is one of those cheeses where the flavour of the milk really comes through.
Cut through the natural rind and you’ll find a pale cream paste that’s firm but never particularly hard. There’s a lovely smoothness to the texture and, as it warms in your mouth, it becomes increasingly buttery.
The first flavours I notice are sweet and nutty. Hazelnut is the obvious one for me, followed by a gentle fruitiness and just enough salt to keep everything beautifully balanced.
Depending on the age of the cheese, I sometimes find hints of caramel, dried fruit and something slightly floral too.
And that’s what I particularly like about Ossau-Iraty. It’s got plenty of flavour without being overwhelming. If somebody tells me they’re unsure about sheep’s milk cheese because they expect it to be incredibly strong, this is a lovely cheese to prove otherwise.
Just don’t eat it straight from the fridge. Cold Ossau-Iraty is a very different thing from one that’s had time to warm up and let all those buttery, nutty flavours come through.
Jen’s note: France has dozens of PDO cheeses, but only two PDO sheep’s milk cheeses: Ossau-Iraty and Roquefort. I love how completely different they are. One is firm, buttery and nutty; the other blue, salty and full-flavoured. Same animal, two completely different cheeses — which rather neatly sums up why cheese never gets boring.
Sizes and Prices
Storage Advice
Delivery and Collection
Ingredients (Allergens are listed in capitals)
MILK, salt, rennet, lactic ferments
Normal opening Monday – Saturday 9am – 4pm until:
Sunday 22nd 9am – 4pm
Monday 23rd 9am – 4pm
Christmas Eve 9am – 12pm
Christmas Day Closed
Boxing Day Closed
Friday 27th Closed
Saturday 28th 9am – 4pm
Sunday 29th Closed
Monday 30th 9am – 2pm
Tuesday 31st 9am – 2pm
New Year’s Day Closed
Thursday 2nd January Closed
Friday 3rd 9am – 4pm then open as normal
After Christmas our courier delivery slots start from 8th January.
