The Langhe sheep is almost extinct: rearing it and transforming its milk into cheese is a way of helping and promoting the local area. Elisa and I share a business idea based on rearing a small number of animals and ensuring that they have a balanced diet, mainly based on pasture and hay. We firmly believe that animals should live well.”

Sara Armellino

“Everything started thanks to the gruta, a 70-metre-long cave dug out of tuff. It was the will to breathe new life into the house and the place where my grandfather was born and raised together with his seven brothers that made me come back up here”. Today, Sara Armellino uses the gruta – more commonly called grotta, the Italian word for cave – for the maturation of the pure sheep milk tomas produced under the brand Le Langhette, the name of the multipurpose farm she started in 2016 with her partner Elisa Core.

She tells us about it as she milks her flock in the stable next to the cave. We are in an old farmhouse owned by her family in the countryside of Saliceto (Cuneo), in Alta Langa, in the hamlet of Lignera Soprana. Sara, born in 1986, had been frequenting it since she was a child: “I studied Forestry Science, I wanted to deal with forest planning and management” she explains. After graduating, Sara had a few experiences in Switzerland and Romania, related to her academic studies, then she chose to come back: “I wrote my thesis on the Langhe sheep, a breed of sheep at risk of extinction. The idea of establishing Le Langhette came to life just as I was studying”.