Master cheesemaker Ana Isabel Rosado Pérez from Paterna opened the Andazul dairy in August 2014. She says that she doesn’t want to grow the business much, rather maintain the artesan character. The milk comes from the immediate region which is one of the reasons she set up in San José del Valle and not in Paterna where she was born.
Her love of cheeses comes from the family of Pedro Álvarez, her husband, whose grandfather, a former goatherd made cheeses for his own consumption. Pedro’s family owns Quesos Montealva (in Torrecera near Jerez de la Frontera). Ana used to work at Montealva and decided to train as as a master cheesemaker. She signed up with IFAPA in Hinojosa del Duque (Córdoba) to learn how to make cheese under master cheesemaker Diego Barriga Vela. She recognised that she needed to differentiate in order to compete in the province where there are approaching 30 cheesemakers. So she went to the Picos de Europa to find out how to make blue cheese. Traditionally the northern blue cheeses were matured in caves, where the conditions are similar in terms of temperature and humidity to industrial cold rooms. She also took inspiration from Stilton Cheeses.
I can see many parallels with Robert Congdon in Devon who took his inspiration from Roquefort and makes blue cheeses in Ticklemore Dairy
As well as making traditional ripened goats cheeses is that they also produce blue cheeses. It is unusual to find cheesemakers making blue cheese from goats milk and until recently there were only 3 such in Spain. Andazul comes in a distinctive blue wrapper.
The first blues appeared in 2013 made from cow’s milk from her husbands farm. Now as well as cow’s milk blue goat’s milk blue is being made (she uses a proportion of payoya milk). The rind is washed (acariciado) with virgin olive oil. We bought this specimen from Caur in Conil- a “deli” that specialises in wine, oil and cheese from the province.
