Hard, soft, salty, white, yellow, masculine and feminine. When it comes to cheese varieties, Naxos offers more than just a sampler. It is one of Greece’s leading producers of cheese.
On Naxos it’s all about saying and tasting cheese!
The island’s rich agricultural and farming landscape has endowed it with a dairy and cheese culture and know-how that has been handed down from generation to generation.
Three Must-Try Naxos Cheeses:
- The Naxos Graviera also known as Naxos Gruyére, this locally produced product has been protected since 1988 and carries a Protected Designation of Origin (PDI) since 1996. It is made with a minimum 80% cows milk, 20% goat’s and sheep’s milk. It is a hard, table cheese, with a pleasant flavor and fragrance.
- Arseniko/Kefalotyri, locally known as arseniko (“masculine”), is produced with 100% sheep’s milk. A table cheese, cylindrical in shape, with a hard but relatively thin outer layer and a color between off-white to off-yellow. It has a pleasant salty and piquant taste and rich aroma; also good for grating.
- Mitzithra and Xinomyzithra Mitzithra is a soft whey cheese with the addition of fresh milk (mostly cow); Xinomyzithra is a soft cheese with a slightly sour taste, mainly made with goat milk. Ready in 24 hours it must be consumed within a few days because it is fresh and contains no preservatives.
