Stefano Lunardi

Stefano Lunardi in a cheese aging cellar

Stefano Lunardi showing La Neige de Brebis cheese

Alpine cheese tasting experiences

Stefano Lunardi – Paesaggi del Gusto

A revealer of good things

“A revealer of good things, a seeker of special places, an interpreter of the landscapes of taste.”

This phrase sums up how I work and, more broadly, how I look at the world. I love discovering what is authentic — sometimes discreet or hidden — and then telling its story and bringing it to life for others through an encounter, a tasting or a journey.

From forests to mountain cheeses

My name is Stefano Lunardi. I hold a university degree in forestry and environmental sciences. For ten years, I worked in this field as an independent professional, contributing to the design and development of local land-enhancement projects in several municipalities in my region.

This first part of my professional life taught me to observe a territory, recognise its balances and understand the deep relationship between nature, human activity and landscape.

In 2012, I took over an old cheese shop — a former dairy in the centre of Aosta — and founded Antica Latteria ErbaVoglio. The name ErbaVoglio reflects my passion for botany and pasture plants. For me, “I want to know the grass” is an essential motto: knowing the plants that animals feed on makes it possible to understand the quality of the milk and, from there, the quality of the cheeses.

That is how I fully entered the world of cheeses, producers and mountain craftsmanship. I became an ONAF Master Cheese Taster, without ever abandoning my original forester’s perspective.

Over time, I realised that what excited me most was not simply having someone taste a cheese, but helping people discover everything it contains: a pasture, a season, a herd, a producer’s work, a valley and a community.

I am also a naturalist guide and hiking guide. All of these experiences gradually came together in a single project: Paesaggi del Gusto.

Discovering a territory through taste

I create tasting experiences, encounters and itineraries that allow people to discover a territory through its flavours.

I always start with the people and the places. I meet the producers, listen to their stories, visit mountain pastures, cellars and workshops. I observe the landscape and look for the connections between the environment, human work and the products that come from them.

I then build a narrative and an experience: a guided tasting, a cheese and wine pairing, a walk, an event or a true gourmet journey. The five senses become instruments for understanding what one is tasting and connecting with the territory.

My work consists of selecting, connecting and interpreting. I look for the thread that links a product to its place of origin, then I guide people so they too can discover it.

The landscape behind the taste

What I love most is the moment when a person is no longer simply tasting a cheese, but begins to perceive the landscape behind it.

A cheese carries within it the grasses of a pasture, the altitude, the climate, the season, the producer’s gestures and sometimes the entire history of a family. The same is true for a wine, an artisanal product or a traditional recipe.

I love creating connections: between a cheese and a wine, between a producer and those tasting, between a place and its history. I also love bringing taste into dialogue with nature, art, literature and travel.

This is the idea at the heart of Paesaggi del Gusto: that taste can become a way of reading a landscape. Every tasting can then turn into a small adventure, one capable of leaving a memory and sparking the desire to get to know the people and places hidden behind what we eat.

For me, this is what makes Alpine cheese tasting experiences so much more than a tasting. They are a way of understanding a place through its people, its landscape and what it produces.

Stefano Lunardi Paesaggi del Gusto +39 347 132 2770 @lunardi.stefano