Tenuta Vannulo

Notes from our tour of Tenuta Vannulo:

History of Mozarella

• was made from the byproducts of making provolone (would go bad within a day or so, so wasn't popular)
• later (with refrigeration, etc) it became popular

Kinds of mozzarelle:

• bocconcini "little mouthfull" - small balls of <100 grams
• mozarelle "little cut thing" - larger balls, about orange/grapefruit size, of 100-250 grams
• aversana "aversa style" - big balls, 0.5-1.0 kilos
• trecce - braided mozarella

Production Process

• raw buffalo milk is curdled
• cagliata (curds) cut up into little pieces by a machine
• add to hot (almost boiling) water, stir & soften curd into a "pasta filata"
• cooling & shaping into balls (or trecce, etc.)

Vocabulary

• stalla nuova = new stables
• mungere = to milk

Production/Buffalo Care

• each sector houses ~50 buffalo
• they have padded pens to lie down on, receive frequent showers (they love moisture), and there is even a yellow massage device!
• milking machines - Vannulo is the first farm in the world to employ them on buffalo (they were designed for cows)
• when an animal first arrives, a picture is taken, allowing the machine to know where the teats are
• buffalos all wear a computer chip hanging on their neck, allowing the computer to track where each one is
• the machines ensure that each cow is milked at most 3 times a day, with at least 7 hours in between milkings
• it automatically checks for blood or other impurities in the milk; if detected, the milk is directed to a separate container and the cow is sent to an "infirmary" pen.
• All the animals have names (Macarone, Berlusconi, etc.); each has its own personality
• There are about 25 bulls for around 250 cows...but most male vitelli (baby buffalo) are sold for meat