Wine-Pressed Cheese Helps Croatian Family to Anthoer World Title

A Croatian cheese from the island of Pag has won another world title, when it was named the best cheese in the world in the hard sheep’s milk cheeses category at the International Cheese Awards held in Nantwich, England recently…

Sirana Gligora Paški sir, which won a best cheese title at the 2014 World Championship Cheese in Wisconsin, USA in March this year, beat off all the competition to again claim the honour of producing the best hard sheep’s milk cheese. A total of 4,443 entries from 26 countries were in Nantwich, England at the end of July for what was the 118th edition, and biggest, International Cheese Awards in its history.

“When we recently won a world title with our new cheese with pressed olives, I said that we will be world champions with the cheese that we had produced two years earlier, the wine pressed cheese. Some said that I was a little arrogant, but I have 40 years experience ,” said director of the Pag family business Šime Gligora, who again proved to be correct.

“My father used to put cheese in grape juice to soften it and make it last longer. Before you could not age cheese in controlled conditions so they put cheese in grapes juice. It leaves a nice wine taste and we have kept that tradition,” son Ivan Gligora told Poslovni dnevnik, adding that they produce around 60 tonnes of each cheese, which sells for over 30 euros a kilogram.