Outside the EU and countries recognizing the PDO, the name Gorgonzola may legally be used to designate similar blue-veined cheeses — as with those from, for example, Wisconsin, Vermont, or elsewhere within the USA.

This is because of the presence of superb natural caves that stay at the perfect temperature (between 6 and 12 degrees Celsius) to make Gorgonzola and many other cheeses.

[6] There is a Lombardy legend of Gorgonzola’s origin where a cheese maker added new fresh curds to a vat and left it open all night.

He attempted to fix his mistake and added fresh curds to the vat and a few months later he was surprised with a new bluish mold that had grown on his cheese.

[9] Since the beginning of the 20th century, popularity of Gorgonzola has steadily increased, with exports having exceeded the tens thousand tons per year.

After World War II, a new technique called the "one-curd" processing method was introduced, addressing problems of hygiene, quality, and cost.

During the ageing process, metal rods are quickly inserted and removed, creating air channels that allow the mould spores to grow into hyphae and cause the cheese's characteristic veining.

Over time, production of the cheese outside Europe has led to the genericization of the term Gorgonzola in certain parts of the world, including in Australia.

James Joyce, in his 1922 novel Ulysses, gives his hero Bloom a lunch of "a glass of Burgundy and a Gorgonzola sandwich".

In his 1972 book Ulysses on the Liffey, critic and Joyce scholar Richard Ellmann suggests that "Besides serving as a parable that life breeds corruption, Gorgonzola is probably chosen also because of Dante's adventures with the Gorgon in the Inferno IX.