Pecorino

Pecorino has nothing to do with the cheese beyond a shared etymology: pecora means sheep, and the usual explanation is that flocks moving along the transhumance routes through the Apennines ate the grapes as they passed.

It was effectively lost. By the 1970s the variety had almost disappeared from the hills of the Marche and Abruzzo, abandoned because it yields poorly and buds early, making it vulnerable to spring frost. Its recovery dates to the early 1980s, when a grower in the Marche located surviving vines and began propagating them, and it has since become one of central Italy's success stories.

The wine justifies the effort. Pecorino is fuller-bodied and more structured than most Italian whites, with high acidity, a distinctly herbal, aniseed-and-sage aromatic character, and flavours of yellow apple, citrus peel and white peach. There is often a faintly bitter, mineral finish and enough phenolic weight to give it grip.

It accumulates sugar readily, so alcohol tends to be high — thirteen or fourteen per cent is normal — and the trick is picking before the acidity falls away.

The best come from Offida in the southern Marche and from the Abruzzo hills, both close enough to the Adriatic to get sea breezes and high enough to get cool nights.

It ages better than most Italian whites, developing a honeyed, nutty depth over four or five years, and it stands up to food that would flatten a lighter wine.