Cretan graviera is produced from sheep's milk by families who have been doing it the same way for generations.
The dairy starts at 05:30. By the time you arrive at six, the milk from the morning milking is already in the copper cauldron, slowly warming over a wood fire. The smell is warm milk and wood smoke and something animal and clean that has no name in English.
The making
Rennet is added to the warm milk and the mixture sits for forty minutes until it sets into a soft curd. The curd is cut into small pieces, stirred and heated until the whey separates. The wheels (each weighing about 8 kilograms) are then salted and placed in the ageing room. Young graviera, aged three months, is mild. Fully aged graviera, at twelve months, is harder, complex, with a slight sweetness from the caramelisation of milk sugars.
The taste
Cretan graviera is a PDO cheese: it can only be called graviera if produced in Crete from local milk. Taste a piece of aged Cretan graviera next to a supermarket version. The difference is immediate. The Cretan version carries the minerals of the limestone soil, the aromatics of the wild herbs the animals eat, the quality of milk from animals that have lived outside their entire lives.
Where to buy
The best graviera in the Chania area comes directly from small dairies in the Apokoronas region. The Vamos weekly market (Sunday mornings) usually has two or three producers selling direct. The Agora covered market in Chania has reliable suppliers.
Buy at the Sunday Vamos market from the producer directly. Ask for aged (παλαιωμένο) rather than young. A 200g piece will last a week in the fridge and improves as it dries slightly.