This semi-hard cheese comes from the Stelvio Valley and the province of Bolzano, located in the mountainous northern Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige, bordered by Austria to the north-east, which is why Stelvio is sometimes called by its German name - Stilfser.
A product of the well-established cheesemaking culture of the wider Bolzano area, Stelvio or Stilfser is made with milk from cows raised on the local mountain farms. Made for hundreds of years before, it wasn't recognized and named up until the early 1900s. The cheese is aged for approximately 60 days, developing a semi-hard texture. It has a reddish colored rind, and an ivory colored paste.