fontina

The Aosta Valley, the smallest region of Italy, sits in a pocket of the western Alps surrounded by France and Switzerland. Cattle herders there developed a semi-soft, washed-rind cheese pressed into wheels and aged in the valley's natural caves and stone cellars. The first written record of the word fontina appears in a 1477 accounting document from the Hospital of Saint-Benin in Aosta. The entry records a payment involving the cheese, which means the word was already in ordinary commercial use by that date.

Where the word came from before 1477 is uncertain. One theory connects it to Fontin, a locality in the commune of Fenis in the Aosta Valley, suggesting the cheese was named for a specific alpine pasture. Another theory derives it from the Latin fondere or Italian fondere (to melt), which would make the name descriptive of the cheese's behavior when heated. The melting theory is probably folk etymology. The place-name theory is more consistent with how Italian cheeses are typically named.

Fontina's production technique is specific: the milk must come from Valdostana cows, the aging happens in stone cellars or mountain caves, and the wheels are rubbed and turned regularly during a minimum 80-day maturation. A fresco painted around 1390 in the Castle of Issogne shows what researchers identify as fontina wheels on a table, suggesting production predates the 1477 written record by at least a century. The cheese received DOP status in 1996.

Modern fontina is prized for its meltability, which makes it central to the Valle d'Aosta dish fonduta, the Italian answer to Swiss fondue. The word itself carries no culinary instruction; it names a place and nothing more. Dozens of fontina-style cheeses exist outside Italy using the same name but different milk and different methods. Only the wheels from the Aosta Valley carry the European protected designation.