Idiazábal is a pressed sheep's-milk cheese from the Basque Country and Navarre, and a protected name. The milk comes from Latxa or Carranzana sheep. Many wheels are lightly smoked.
It is firm, savory, and a little piquant when aged. Use it on a board or grate it over warm food. Unsmoked wheels exist. Smoke is traditional and not universal.
History
The cheese belongs to the shepherds of the Basque mountains and of Navarre. Latxa sheep, and the related Carranzana, are the flocks. The village of Idiazábal, in Gipuzkoa, gave the name. Cheeses were often kept in the rafters of mountain huts, where the hearth smoked them lightly over weeks. That accident of storage became a flavor people now expect.
The protection covers the Basque Country and Navarre and those breeds. It is a cheese of a pastoral system, not of a single factory recipe that happens to include liquid smoke. Some wheels are still smoked with wood in the old spirit. Some are not smoked. Both can be correct. A heavy artificial smoke is a different, cheaper idea.
How it is made
Raw or otherwise regulated sheep's milk from the named breeds is made into a pressed wheel with a natural rind. The curd is cooked and pressed, salted, and aged until the paste is firm. Smoking, when it happens, should be light enough that the sheep's milk is still the main flavor. The wheel is not a brined feta and not a soft fresh cheese.
Age makes it harder and more suitable for grating. A young wheel within the style is still a slicing cheese. The breed matters because Latxa milk is the traditional flavor. A smoked cheese from other sheep, made elsewhere, can be delicious and cannot use this name. Read for the protection and the place if you want this wheel rather than a generic smoked sheep cheese.
Taste
The taste is sheepy, savory, slightly sweet, and salty, with smoke as a woodsy edge when the wheel was smoked. It is less salty than Pecorino Romano and more aromatic than a young Manchego. The texture is firm, sometimes with a little give in a younger cheese and a clean break in an older one.
Good smoke smells like a hearth, not like a burnt sausage. If you taste only smoke, the cheese was oversmoked or poorly made. If you taste no sheep and no smoke, it may be too cold. Warm the wedge. A rancid or bitter finish is a fault. The piquancy of an aged wheel should feel like a pleasant sharpness, not like a sting from spoilage.
In the kitchen
Eat slices with bread, walnuts, or quince paste. Grate it over a warm salad, a grilled vegetable, or a simple pasta where a Spanish sheep cheese is wanted. In the Basque Country it appears with cider-house food and on pintxo counters, in small strong bites rather than as a melted blanket.
Do not use a heavily smoked wheel in a delicate dish. The smoke will be the only thing you remember. Do not replace it with Manchego and expect the hearth note, unless the wheel you have is an unsmoked Idiazábal and you only needed sheep's milk. Pecorino can grate in a similar way and will taste saltier and more Italian. A little Idiazábal finishes a plate. A lot can make the plate taste only of smoke and salt.
Around the world
The cheese is made in the Basque Country and Navarre and eaten there as a regional sheep cheese with a living pastoral economy behind it. Outside Spain it is a cheese-shop wheel more than a supermarket staple. People who know Manchego sometimes find Idiazábal next and realize Spanish sheep cheese is not one flavor.
Buy it when you want sheep and, usually, a light smoke. Ask whether the wheel is smoked if the label is shy. An unsmoked Idiazábal is still Idiazábal. A smoked Manchego is not a substitute that erases the difference in breed, region, and tradition. Serve it at room temperature, in small pieces. It is a tasting cheese as much as a cooking cheese.