Xoxote cheese from the Berastegi farmhouse, a guarantee of quality.

Latxa sheep, the Xoxote mountain and the good work of the Berastegi farm represent the success of Xoxote cheese.

From the first shepherds who led their flocks through the Izarraitz massif to the present day, much time has passed, but the essence and tradition of cheese making still have the same common denominators. The latxa sheep, the Urola valley and the knowledge passed on from generation to generation, are indispensable to understand the way of life of the family that forms the Berastegi farmhouse.

Berastegi farmhouse products, Xoxote idiazabal cheese

Artzai Gazta Stamp

We found the baserri (Basque farmhouse) Berastegi in a strategic point of the valley of Urola, on the slope of Mount Xoxote, at the top of the valley, a place from which you can enjoy a beautiful view of the Sanctuary of Loiola, a place where sheep are the protagonists and cheese, the most demanded product.

Loiola from Berastegi baserri

The climatic seasons mark the way to follow. During the summer and autumn months the flock of latxa (blond-faced) sheep graze on the Izarraitz massif, on the slopes of Mount Xoxote, and in spring and winter they return home to the Berastegi farmhouse, thus optimizing the natural pastures on which the flock feeds.

Natural feed Baserri Berastegi

Xoxote cheese is still made with the centuries-old practices and customs of the shepherds of the Urola Valley, a detail that makes this artisan cheese has that special character, a character, marked by our pastoral culture, our cheese culture. Sixteen-hour working days, the quality of the pastures and the breed of sheep, result in a cheese with dozens of awards behind it, awards that, although always appreciated, are of no use if you do not continue working in the same way and perseverance, a premise that is very clear in Berastegi.

Xoxote Cheese

We recommend reading our article on Idiazabal cheese tasting to better understand the quality of this Idiazabal cheese.

The Latxa sheep breed is a small, rustic, resistant animal, ideal for adapting to the climate and geography of the Basque Country. The great quality of its milk makes us forget the small and limited production that this breed offers us.

Latxa sheep from Berastegi farmhouse

During our visit to the facilities we had the opportunity to taste several types of cheese, all of them from Berastegi, among which we must highlight 2:

• Smoked cheeseThe typical cheese of “artzai gazta” (shepherd’s cheese), a cheese that for centuries has been tasted in the corners of our land. A cheese, which for more than 5 hours rests in the smoke created to obtain a special smell and flavor, a certain spicy, as if it were a spicy cheese.

Xoxote Smoked Cheese

• The “old” cheeseA mature cheese, a cheese from previous years in which you can appreciate a more intense flavor, a flavor that has improved over time, a flavor that lingers in the mouth.

Xoxote Cheese

What is the best cheese to take home? Although the best would have been a mixture of the two cheeses we mentioned, they did not have such a product. So we made up for it by taking one cheese of each type, a purchase we would recommend without hesitation.

In Berastegi they do not have organized visits, they do it the old-fashioned way. Anyone who comes to their house with an interest in buying cheese or seeing the facilities will have the opportunity to do so. A free visit in which they tell us about their way of life, their day to day, close and complete. We start at the entrance of the cheese factory, in the same space where they serve dozens of customers daily, where they weigh and vacuum pack the cheeses of each of the orders. After being shown the basic concepts of cheese making, we contemplate the herd and the stable together with the milking room, a short but intense tour. We recommend you to take into account the cheese making schedule (all morning, until 12:30) when traveling to Berastegi (Izarraitz district of Azpeitia).

Xoxote Cheeses

Upon entering Berastegi, the txapelas and the different awards attract the visitor’s attention, but the most important for the Berastegi family is the one that goes unnoticed, a diploma located on the right hand side on which you can read “Ordiziako Idiazabal gaztaren Kofriadiako lehendakariak diploma hau ematen dio Berastegui elkarteari. Ordizian 2014 eko Irailaren 10 an artzaiek egindako ardi latxa esnezko gaztaren lehiaketan parte hartu ondoren 3ª saria irabazi duelako”, which translated into Spanish reads: “The president of the Idiazabal cheese brotherhood of Ordizia grants this diploma to the Berastegui association. As a demonstration of the 3rd place obtained in the contest of cheese elaborated with latxa sheep’s milk that they have carried out with shepherds”.

Berastegi baserria awards, Xoxote

The environment helps, and a lot, to understand the quality of the cheeses that we taste in the baserri Berastegi. In the interior of the Urola Valley, on the slopes of Mount Xoxote, where the greenery is striking, we find the herd from which the raw material, milk, comes from. In the Urola valley we can find local producers capable of elaborating high quality local products of Euskal Herria, a valley rich in nature, history, traditions and of course, in gastronomy.

The Berastegi baserri gives us the opportunity to buy its product through different channels, so we can buy online, in the farm itself or in the different stores scattered throughout the Basque Country, of course, the authentic and what we recommend from TurismoVasco.com is to buy it from the producers themselves, in their own home, while the sheep bleat a few meters away.

Herd in the Berastegi baserri

We leave behind the baserri Berastegi, but not before accrediting the hard work they do day after day with our exclusive accreditation “TurismoVasco Tiketa”. The squares of all Euskal Herria the mountain are their workplace, hard but beautiful scenarios, typical, traditional, of the land.

Tourism AccreditationVasco Tiketa

A great product based on the traditions of their ancestors, a quality cheese that we could not overlook, a cheese that traveled this time to Bizkaia, to home.