As of 2019, Bergamo has been awarded the title of Unesco Creative City for Food and Wine thanks to the cheese valleys: lands that have been producing dairy excellence in a sustainable way for more than 400 years. Over the centuries, the Orobic valleys have given rise to an enormous variety of shapes, maturation and processing. The numbers speak for themselves: of the 50 national PDOs, as many as 9 belong to Bergamo, earning it the title of “European Cheese Capital.” It is the Orobian Alps that make Bergamo a privileged place for dairy culture, with its cheese valleys, full of pristine alpine pastures, where herds are lovingly raised by Bergamì people, and then the age-old art of the cheesemakers who, like skilled alchemists, transform pure mountain milk into the tastiest forms.
Every year in October, Bergamo hosts FORME, a festival dedicated to the world of cheese: a stage for the UNESCO Creative Cities for Gastronomy, a catalyst for the development of the Orobic cheese valleys.
This is a spectacular market exhibition, with Cheese Labs, conferences and competitions all dedicated to the world of cheese. An event not to be missed.
