Each Saturday, David Brenner of Villasfor2 in Abruzzo selects a delicious, top-value 'Everyday Italian Wine' for you to try at home - or enjoy on your Abruzzo vacation !

Tirabuccia. 'Gocce di Pecorino'. 2007. Cantina Miglianico
Here's a real treat - a brand-new white wine in a brand-new range from Abruzzo's brilliant Cantina Miglianico. Pecorino is yet another of Italy's heritage grape varieties - but one which was thought to be extinct before the chance discovery of a few spindly vines growing wild in Le Marche 30-odd years ago resurrected its fortunes.  

Nobody seems quite sure if there's any connection between the Pecorino grape and Pecorino cheese - though there are plenty of fanciful theories. Best of these is that the grape was a favourite snack of the sheep producing the milk for Pecorino cheese ! Likeliest is that the grape and the cheese tended to come from the same areas of Le Marche and Abruzzo.

The Pecorino grape isn't the easiest to grow. Yields are variable and its thin skin is prone to splitting and rot. It also ripens in September - a good month before other local varieties. Perhaps these problems were the initial reasons it fell from favour, but even though it's now back in regular production in Marche and Abruzzo, premium examples like this are still very much a well-guarded local secret. 

So if the Pecorino grape is difficult to grow and production in Abruzzo is so small that the wine only qualifies for IGT status - why bother ? The answer is that the Pecorino grape produces extremely good wine - and this new offering from Cantina Miglianico is streets ahead of any Pecorino I've tasted before.

Here we have a chunky bottle of the darkest green sporting a trendy amber metal foil label. In the glass, a light, greeny-gold with scents of elderflower. But it's the taste that ratchets-up the wow factor. Very full, with an almost Chablis-like mineral quality, dry and flinty; slightly nutty, redolent of fresh green filberts, angelica and a little tang of citrus. Long finish. Very, very classy. "Gocce di Pecorino" means "drops of Pecorino" - an apt description for the purest sensation of the fruit that's crammed into this wine. (And if you're wondering, the loosest translation of the brand name "Tirabuccia" is "peel the skin" !)

I'd be happy to drink Gocce di Peccorino with poached or smoked salmon, crab, lobster and other shellfish. I don't subscribe to the theory that mystically pairs like-with-like and suggests you drink it while eating pecorino cheese - it was actually a fairly nasty experience - but for a truly sublime end to a meal, save a glass to go with a white peach and a couple of home-made cantuccini biscuits.

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Tirabuccia 'Gocce di Pecorino'
• Vintage: 2007
• Producer: Cantina Miglianico
• Designation: IGT
• Grape: 100% Pecorino
• Strength: 13%
• Closure: Plastic cork
• This bottle cost: Still too new to establish this. Miglianico say around €7.

Click on the pictures in the text for larger images - and if you like Italian wine, why not check out last week's 'Everyday Italian Wine' and bookmark this site for future weekly posts !

Next week: Sicily's most popular red wine - from one of the island's best producers, which you'll enjoy trying at home, or on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation !

Abruzzo vacation, Cantina Miglianico, Everyday Italian Wine, Gocce di Pecorino, Pecorino grape, Villasfor2

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 2:46 am and is filed under David's 'Everyday Italian Wine', Eating and Drinking, Vineyards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.