The last shepherd cheesemaker in the Grazalema sierra

In the sierra of Cádiz, at 1,040 metres of altitude, a wind blows that smells of rosemary in the morning and of rockrose by dusk. Lola Bohórquez milks her 210 goats before the sun has fully risen. There is no electric light in the pen, but at her altitude she no longer needs it.

The payoya is a small breed, with curved horns and watchful eyes. In the eighties only forty head remained in the whole comarca. Today, thanks to a handful of shepherds like Lola, there are several thousand. Their milk carries a peculiar fat that only appears in goats grazing the open sierra: bitter in August, sweet in February, mineral when the soil still holds the first rains.

«I decide nothing», says Lola, sitting on a stone at the edge of the pen. «The mountain decides. I just set what the mountain gives me.» Her dairy lies at the end of a dirt track only known to those who already know it. There is no sign. None is needed. The three hundred wheels she produces each year are booked six months in advance.

The natural caves around Grazalema work as free ageing chambers. Lola uses all of them. The temperature stays steady year round, humidity drifts just enough, and the rind develops a blue-grey mould that in the best months looks hand-painted. The twelve-month wheel carries a toasted nut aroma; the eighteen-month one, a peppery point on the tongue that recalls a fino sherry.

«Cheese isn’t made in the dairy», Lola says before walking off. «It’s made in the field, before the goat even eats. Here we only set the curd.»