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By Slow Food International

From Sept 20-23, the city of Bra in Italy’s northeast will once again host four days of Cheese! Coming from across Italy, Europe and the world, cheesemakers will be presenting a staggering range of fromage to visitors, participating in workshops and guided tasting sessions and discussing critical issues facing the world of artisan dairy production today.

The theme of this ninth edition of Slow Food’s biennial event is the Ark of Taste – a project to catalog traditional food products at risk of disappearing – because protecting a cheese means saving breeds, pastures, landscapes and the knowledge preserved by rural communities. Visitors are encouraged to join the Save a Cheese! campaign by nominating a dairy product for the Ark.

In addition to biodiversity, the event will address other issues important to cheesemakers such as raw milk and starter cultures, the abandonment of mountain pastures and increasing cases of food fraud.

The program of Taste Workshops offers a unique insight into cheese from a particular region or style: taste French cheeses under the guidance of Laurent Mons, sample cheeses from the Pyrenees with Montserrat Ferrer, or discover the cheeses of South Africa, the Balkans and other far-flung places.

During the four days of the event visitors can taste and buy cheeses often impossible to find. The streets of Bra’s historic center will be filled with the stalls of the Cheese Market, produced by Terra Madre communities and artisan producers from all corners of the world. The Via degli Affinatori will showcase of the art of cheese agers, including masters such as Jason Hinds from London’s Neal’s Yard Dairy.

This year the Great Hall of Cheese will highlight producers from the British Isles among its array of 150 cheeses available for tasting, situated side-by-side the Enoteca with its complimentary selection of 800 Italian wines. The best of Italy’s ‘cheesy’ regional cuisine will be available from the Tasting Booths, Street Food stalls and the Pizza Piazza.

Read more about Cheese 2013.