Romao is a sheep's milk cheese from Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, made in the Manchego tradition and then taken in a direction all its own. After the wheels are shaped and salted, the rinds get rubbed with Iberian pork lard and packed with fresh rosemary, then sent to the caves for about eight months. The paste is firm and dense, the pale ivory color you'd expect from aged sheep's milk, breaking into clean slabs with a slightly oily edge where the lard cure has worked its way in. On the nose, the rosemary is unmistakable, piney and herbal and very fresh. On the palate it leads with the buttery, faintly nutty character of aged sheep's milk, then the rosemary lifts the finish into something green and aromatic, never bitter, never harsh. The lard-and-rosemary cure is the calling card here. Eight months in the cave is long enough for the herbs to perfume the paste from the rind in, but not so long that the cheese dries out or the rosemary takes over. It sits right in the sweet spot between a classic Manchego and something more aromatic, and it's a real conversation piece on a board.
