A
decade ago, mozzarella di bufala owned the category of water-buffalo cheese. If it was possible
to even make another style of cheese with water-buffalo milk, nobody knew it. Water-buffalo
Taleggio? Water-buffalo Camembert? Water-buffalo blue cheese? Don't be ridiculous.
Cheeses made from water-buffalo milk now go far beyond
mozzarella di bufala. And customers are noticing.
BY JANET FLETCHER
Bufala Bonanza
Today, an enthusiast could assemble a platter of water-
buffalo cheeses with a symphony of tastes and textures.
Choices are proliferating in this niche, sales are climbing, and
smart retailers are expanding their offering to please those
customers who love new experiences.
The Challenges of Supply and Demand
Michele Buster, proprietor of Forever Cheese, the New York-
based importer, helped launch the category when, 10 years
ago, she began bringing in the aged water-buffalo cheeses
produced by Quattro Portoni in Italy's Lombardy region.
The two brothers behind Quattro Portoni developed the first
significant water-buffalo herd in Northern Italy. When they
began cheesemaking in 2006, even their consultant from the
local dairy school did not know how to develop recipes beyond
mozzarella for this high-fat, high-protein milk.
Buster's business with Quattro Portoni "has definitely
more than doubled," she says, "but it has never been easy."
The cheeses are expensive because the milk is scarce. The
hefty, docile bufala produces exceptionally rich milk—up to
10 percent in fat and 5 percent in protein, similar to sheep's
milk—but not much of it. And because Italy's water-buffalo
herds descend from a small pool of parents, they have genetic
weaknesses that can cause birth defects and other abnormali-
ties, reducing supply even further.
Although the skyrocketing popularity of mozzarella di
bufala suggests otherwise, Italy has less than one percent of
the world's water buffalo. Ninety-five percent of these sturdy
cheese focus
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