Ano Skotina · Pieria · Greece
Six months in beech.
Nothing else changed.
PDO feta, halloumi and sheep's-milk butter from a single farmstead on Mount Olympus's western slope. Aged in wood, the way it was before stainless steel.
- PDO
- Certified feta, Greece
- 6 mo
- Aged in beech barrels
- 1
- Farmstead, one flock
- ~40
- Barrels per season
We are a family of four working one farmstead above the village of Ano Skotina, on the western slope of Mount Olympus. Our grandfather set the first barrels here in 1961. We milk 240 sheep and 60 goats, make cheese six days a week from November to July, and fill about forty barrels a season. That is the whole operation.
The differentiator
One barrel, followed from March to September.
Industrial PDO feta ages in stainless or plastic tins because wood is porous, unpredictable and cannot be cleaned to industrial spec. We accepted that constraint.
Beat 01
The curd
Raw sheep's milk from the morning milking, set with traditional rennet, cut by hand and drained in cloth. No milk is bought in. No milk is pooled.
Milk in: 640 L · 14 March
Beat 02
Packed in salt
Blocks are layered into beech barrels with coarse sea salt, then topped with brine. Wood is porous and cannot be sterilised — that resident microflora is the point.
Barrel 14 · sealed 12 March
Beat 03
Six months dark
The barrel room sits at 10–12 °C without refrigeration. Six months is roughly triple the legal PDO minimum. At four months the acidity is still sharp and thin.
10–12 °C · no forced cooling
Beat 04
The opening
Each barrel is opened, tasted, graded and dated. About one in twelve doesn't make grade and never leaves the creamery.
Barrel 14 · opened 9 September
What we make
Three things, made all season.
No seasonal line extensions, no flavoured tubs. What the flock gives, in the order it gives it.
- Elevation
- 860–1,340 m
- Milk season
- Nov – Jul
- Breeds
- Karagouniko · Skopelos
The people
“At four months it tastes like an argument. The wood needs the full six to round it off — that's not romance, it's what the pH does.”
Dimitris Vlahos · Cheesemaker
Dimitris Vlahos
Cheesemaker, second generation
Eleni Vlahou
Flock and pasture
From the kitchen
Cook it, keep it, pour with it.
“It's the only feta on my counter I don't have to explain. People taste it and the conversation is over.”
Marguerite Hall · The Cheese Cave, Portland OR
Noted in
- Saveur — “The barrel holdouts”, 2025
- Culture Magazine — Producer profile, 2024
- Eater — Best cheeses of the year, 2024
Feta is a Protected Designation of Origin product: it may only be made in defined regions of Greece, from sheep's milk with up to 30% goat's milk. Our production is certified and audited annually.
Order online
Direct shipping opens with the September barrels. Join the list to be told first.
Food service
Wholesale cuts, 1 kg and 4 kg formats, delivered on a fixed barrel calendar.