A cheese made from whole cows* milk, with spun curds, of variable ripeness with the following shapes, sausage, melon, truncated conical and pear-shaped, even topped with a small spherical head (bottle-shaped).

Geographical area: the entire territory of the provinces of Cremona, Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, Rovigo, Padua, Piacenza and neighbouring communes of the provinces of Bergamo, Mantua, Milan and the autonomous province of Trento forming a single geographical area.

For approximately the past century, because of the serious lack of raw material (cows5 milk) production has been fragmentary and has moved to areas better known for dairy farming (the area around Valpadana and neighbouring areas). As a consequence, it was found to be essential to have workers who were skilled in the traditional production techniques, which used to be found mainly in the southern areas. Then traditional production methods typical of Valdapana came to be established. As a result of these traditional practices, the name was originally recognized by the D.P.R. of 30,10,1955, No. 1269, which was followed by the D.P.CM, of 9.4.1993

introducing new production and product-naming regulations.

The curds, obtained by adding calf's, kid3 s or lamb's rennet singly or together to the milk, are spun and then modelled into the traditional shapes and then salted and ripened for a variable period depending on the weight of the particular shape of cheese.