Cheeses of Bra
A Piedmont town that names its own cheese, where the Slow Food movement began and a big cheese fair is held every other year.
Made, aged and sold here
Best time: September of odd-numbered years for Cheese; autumn for truffles.
Bra is a baroque town in the Roero hills of southern Piedmont, between the Langhe and the Alps. It gave its name to Bra, a cow's milk cheese traded here from the mountain valleys, and in 1986 it became the birthplace of the Slow Food movement. Every two years in September, the town hosts Cheese, a fair that brings makers from all over the world.
Bra and the cheeses of Piedmont
Bra tenero is a young, soft, mild cheese; Bra duro is aged for months until hard and sharp. Both are made from cow's milk, sometimes with a little sheep or goat milk, in the province of Cuneo. The valleys above Bra also make Castelmagno, a crumbly blue-tinged cheese, Raschera, a square mountain cheese, and many kinds of toma.
The town
Bra has baroque churches, a hilltop sanctuary and the university of gastronomic sciences at nearby Pollenzo, founded by the Slow Food movement. The town is known for salsiccia di Bra, a veal sausage eaten raw. The wine hills of Barolo and Barbaresco and the truffle town of Alba lie a short drive away.
A trail idea for Bra
- Bra old town The baroque churches and cheese shops of the centre.
- Cheese fair Visit the fair held in September of odd-numbered years.
- Pollenzo The gastronomic university and its old royal estate.
- Alba and the Langhe Continue to the truffle and wine hills nearby.
Written by the EveryCheese desk with AI assistance. Background: "Bra, Piedmont" on Wikipedia. Opening hours, markets, caves and tours change; check locally before travelling. If something is wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Bra: F. D. Richards, CC BY-SA 2.0, source