Fondue Becomes a Winter Ritual in Santa Catarina
The dish is served in several forms, including cheese, meat and chocolate versions. Local tourism and food businesses associate fondue with the winter experience in the Serra catarinense, where visitors return to the dish during the colder months.
Its principal ingredient is serrano cheese, made from raw milk produced by cows raised in the region’s high-altitude pastures. The farmers who produce it work in winter conditions in which morning temperatures can fall to -8°C. When melted, the cheese gives the fondue a dense texture and a slightly acidic flavour.
Serrano cheese already has a geographical indication. It is also going through a process to be recognised as an intangible cultural heritage of Santa Catarina. These designations have placed the cheese at the centre of the local dish rather than treating it as a secondary ingredient.
The fondue is commonly paired with wines from the high-altitude vineyards of São Joaquim, Campo Belo do Sul and Urupema. Regional restaurants serve the melted cheese with full-bodied varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, produced near the area’s cheesemakers.
Leonardo Ferrari, an enologist at Vinícola Abreu Garcia, links the character of these wines to local conditions. He says altitude, cold nights and a wide temperature range slow grape ripening and produce wines that are more precise, elegant and long-lived, with a natural affinity for the region’s food.
For Benito, a tour guide in Bom Jardim da Serra, fondue also has a social role. He describes families and friends gathering around a fireplace or wood-burning stove, with the pan placed in the middle of the table. The arrangement requires diners to share the same dish and wait for one another.
Other melted-cheese preparations have joined winter menus. Raclette, in which cheese is heated over embers and scraped onto potatoes, vegetables and cured meats, reached the region in recent years. A local preparation known as queijo na brasa places artisanal cheese directly on a grill, where it melts slowly while meat cooks beside it.
