The texture of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese was studied by rheological and sensory analysis. Twelve cheeses, four samples of three ages (12, 18 and 28 months), were selected at random from 12 dairies. Four rheological parameters can describe the differences between the cheeses: apparent elastic modulus and stress, strain and work at fracture. Sensory analysis followed a procedure recently established within the EC Flair programme in which textural attributes were evaluated using a seven-point scale. A large and statistically 'highly significant' effect of age was found on the elastic modulus and the strain at fracture, and a smaller and less significant effect on many of the sensory attributes. A large effect of age was also shown on the presence of crystals, a typical characteristic of mature Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Six of the sensory variates were found to be predicted by rheological variates using partial least squares regression. This was a preliminary study on the prediction of sensory quality from rheological data which will need further evaluation of a great number of samples to obtain conclusive results to be used for practical purpose.