A soft cheese made with sheep's milk and made in Navàs is the best in Catalonia

VicTou del Mujal is made with sheep's milk, matured for one month, and has become the best in Catalonia today. "Soft cheeses aren't easy to make because you have to turn and wash them every day," said makers Martí Just and Lourdes Casas at the Lactium Fair in Vic, in Jaume Balmes Park, where they collected the award.

Priced at thirteen euros, Tou del Mujal bears this name because it's soft-cured and because the town where the makers live is Mujal, a rural village of fifty inhabitants that depends on the town of Navàs. "We must have the smallest cheese factory in Catalonia, because it's on the ground floor of my house and measures twenty-five square meters; we live upstairs," explained Martí. Ever since the jury, along with the director of the Lactium Fair, Isabel Tutusaus, had announced the award, the cheesemakers' stall had been packed to capacity. Everyone wanted to try this award-winning cheese. To savor it, a piece of bread with extra virgin olive oil was essential. "I don't recommend anything else, with a bit of bread or simply eat it alone," affirmed Martí Just. Within an hour, the cheese factory had sold out all the cheeses it had brought to sell during the two-day fair, which ends tomorrow, Sunday.

The Cal Músic cheese factory began in 2018 after Lourdes Casas left her employment habits as a worker in the human resources department of a company. It has added training, so much so that the same year they started, they won awards at the Fira Lactium. Last year, they won another award for cow's milk.

The salt from the prehistoric salt mine of Solsona

Tou del Mujal cheese, the best cheese in Catalonia as of today, is made with lactic ferments, rennet, and a salt that the makers highlight: a salt from a salt mine in Solsona that is of prehistoric origin.

The Lactium fair has reached its seventeenth edition with the aim of promoting Catalan cheeses, increasing their visibility, and also providing value to farmers and producers. Its promoter, Isabel Tutusaus, distributed the tastings with the jury over nine dates this year, beginning in April. The cheeses tasted by the jury included soft, hard, and acidic curds from all the milks available in Catalonia: goat, cow, sheep, and buffalo. Other cheeses included cheeses with washed, brushed, or bloomed rinds, as well as blue cheeses (which Isabel Tutusaus considers to be established) and Tupines.

In Vic's Jaume Balmes Park, where the Lactium fair is taking place, the jury announced the best cheese in Catalonia with a symbolic and graphic formula: throwing gold coins on it.

Other awards

• Recuit Pauet, Pauet Dairy
• Goat stew, Armengol Farm
• Cendrat, from the La Gavarresa cheese factory
• Toscat, from the L'Aubreda cheese factory
• Carrat, from the Bauma cheese factory
• Bells, from the El Miracle cheese factory
• Galany, from the La Balda cheese factory
• El Pla, from the Mas Alba cheese factory
• El Ferrer, from the Cal Músic cheese factory
• Saüll, from the La Xiquella cheese factory
• Gran Pep, from the Sant Gil de Albió cheese factory
• Fregado, from the Casa Mateu cheese factory
• The Cloister, from the El Milagro cheese factory
• Ros Reserva, from the Can Pujol cheese factory
• Garrotxa, from the Mas Rovira cheese factory
• Azul de Osona, from the El Molí de la Llavina cheese factory
• Tupí Molí de Ger, from the Molí de Ger cheese factory