The cows are back in the barn: the first winter milk becomes a small wheel with your name written by hand.
Mini Hay: the first winter milk has a name
The cows are back in the barn. Outside, the grass is no longer enough, so from now on they eat only the hay we cut this summer. The milk changes straight away, becoming richer and sweeter, and the first wheels made from it have a very specific purpose: they become Mini Hay, to be given as a gift with a name written on top.
Back to the barn: where the grass ends, the hay begins
We have been raising Bruna Alpina Originale cows for almost forty years, an ancient breed that leaves the barn in spring and doesn’t come back until November. In May the transhumance began: first the low pastures, then the alpine summer pastures, then back down again. Now the circle closes. The cows come home, rest, and the barn becomes their winter house.
It’s a shift that cheese tells better than any calendar. That’s why in our dairy we don’t name our wheels by age, but by what the cows have eaten.
Colour isn’t age: reading a cheese by what the cows ate
People usually think the colour of a cheese tells you how aged it is. It doesn’t. Colour changes enormously with diet: fresh grass and alpine flowers give a more golden paste, hay a paler one. Here every cheese is named after what the cows eat, and the milk is always raw.
- Formai del Ferdy Hay, winter in the barn. Mountain hay only, very sweet and delicate. Made from now on.
- Formai del Ferdy Green, spring and autumn. Low-altitude pasture, a savoury cheese with an elastic paste.
- Formai de Mut dell’AVB DOP, summer on the alpine pastures. From June to September, high-altitude flowers and herbs: the cheese of the alpeggio.
Three seasons, three names, one common thread: what’s on the cows’ plate.
Mini Hay: a small wheel, made to be given
With the first winter milk, Alberto, our cheesemaker, starts making Mini Hay. They are small wheels, in a limited edition, of about 1.35 kg of Formai del Ferdy Hay: raw milk from Bruna Alpina Originale cows and about two months of ageing.
Then Nicole steps in. On the flat face of each wheel she writes by hand the name or message you choose, up to five words. For companies, the message can be replaced by your logo: just email it to us. One wheel at a time, one person at a time.
- The cheese: Formai del Ferdy Hay, about 1.35 kg, raw milk from Bruna Alpina Originale cows, about two months of ageing
- The price: €76
- The decoration: included, a name or message hand-written by Nicole, up to 5 words (50 characters max), or your company logo
- The packaging: gift box included, ready to go under the tree
- Shipping: pre-order now, shipping from 1 December across Italy by express courier, delivery in 24/48 hours
- Free shipping: over €99, to a single address (otherwise €6.90)
It arrives vacuum-packed and keeps in the fridge, between 0 and 4 °C. It’s the gift for someone who already has everything: a birthday, Christmas, the friends hosting you for dinner. The cheese arrives with the recipient’s name, written by someone from here.
Few wheels, one winter: why there are no more
We make only a few, because each one is made by hand. When they’re gone, you wait for next winter. There’s no stock in a warehouse to draw from: there’s the milk of these months, Alberto’s hands in the dairy and Nicole’s on the wheel.
A gift is not merchandise
Giving a Mini Hay means choosing a cheese that has an age, a diet and a place, and putting a name on it. Authenticity isn’t a souvenir: it’s a mountain cheese that arrives with a message from the person who wrote it. At a time when everything is bought the same, this is the opposite.
