Alfalfa honey: What it is and why it is different from wildflower honey

When people think of honey, their minds almost always drift to the same image: a golden, sweet, somewhat generic jar. But honey, much like Parmigiano Reggiano, changes completely depending on what the bees that produce it eat — and where.

Starting this year, alongside Parmigiano Reggiano Solo di Bruna, Valserena is also producing alfalfa honey, gathered by the same bees that work our fields in Gainago di Torrile. It is a new product for us, but it is born from the same philosophy that has guided our dairy since 1879.

What is alfalfa honey

Alfalfa is a forage plant that blooms with small purple flowers, rich in nectar, which bees forage with particular intensity during the spring and summer months. The resulting honey has very precise characteristics:

Light color, tending towards a soft amber. Delicate aroma, floral and never overpowering. Sweet but balanced flavor, with a slightly herbaceous note. Relatively rapid natural crystallization — a sign of authenticity, not a defect.

How it differs from wildflower honey

Wildflower honey (like our Gainago Wildflower Honey) comes from the foraging of various flowers, collected in different periods and areas: it is a "landscape" honey, which tells the story of the variety of a territory at a given moment.

Alfalfa honey, on the other hand, is monofloral: it comes from a single plant, cultivated by the same hands that look after our cows and cheese. This means a more consistent flavor profile over time and complete traceability.

Why we started producing it

The answer is simpler than it seems: we already had everything. The alfalfa fields had existed for generations to feed the livestock; all that was missing were the hives. We started small, with a limited number of beehives, to understand how the honey performed batch after batch before offering it to our customers.