No, not the cheese.
Pecorino is a white grape from Abruzzo that almost disappeared. It came back. We pour it in Larnaca.
- GrapePecorino
- GrowerTenuta Ulisse
- PlaceCrecchio, Chieti · Italy
You are allowed to say what everybody says.
Half the people who hear the name look at the menu twice. Pecorino is a sheep’s cheese. It is also a white grape from Abruzzo, and the two have nothing to do with each other beyond the word pecora, sheep.
So no, you are not confused. The grape genuinely has a confusing name, and pointing that out is the correct reaction.
Ask for "the one that isn’t cheese". We will know exactly what you mean, and nobody will make a face.
A young winery with a very old grandfather.
Tenuta Ulisse sits at Crecchio, in the province of Chieti, where Abruzzo runs down towards the Adriatic. The brothers Luigi and Antonio Ulisse started it in 2006, which makes it younger than most of the names on our shelf.
The family is not young at all. Their grandfather, Don Antonio, was making wine here in the middle of the last century. The winery is new; the habit is not.
The vineyards are hill sites on clay and limestone — the kind of ground that gives a white wine its spine instead of its weight.
Pecorino itself nearly went out of existence. Growers pulled it up because it yields badly and ripens awkwardly, and for a while it was almost gone. Somebody kept it. That is the second time on this shelf that a grape survived because one stubborn person refused to give up on it.
The one to order when the pizza has anchovies on it.
Pecorino is dry and full without being heavy, with a bitter-almond edge at the end that stops it turning soft. It has more body than most whites this side of the shelf.
That body is the point. A Margherita does not need it — but a pizza with anchovies, capers, olives, anything salty and loud from the sea, will roll straight over a delicate white.
This one does not roll. It meets the salt and holds. Abruzzo is a coast too; the grape grew up with this problem.
Two hours from Naples, four hours from here, on a shelf in Larnaca.
Abruzzo is the mountains and the sea directly east of Rome. Naples is south of it. Daniele grew up two hours from where this wine is made and had to move to Cyprus to put it on a list.
That is roughly the story of the whole shelf: things from home, in a room that is not home, poured for people who are mostly not Italian. It works better than it has any right to.
Come and settle the cheese question.
Bring somebody who will insist it is a cheese. Order a pizza with anchovies, order this next to it, and let the argument end itself. We stop at a hundred pizzas a day — the earlier you come, the better your chances.
The things people actually ask.
Q.Is Pecorino a wine or a cheese?
Both, and they are unrelated. Pecorino is a sheep’s milk cheese from central Italy, and Pecorino is also a white grape variety grown mainly in Abruzzo and Marche. They share only the root word pecora, meaning sheep. The wine is dry, full-bodied and unrelated in taste to the cheese.
Q.What does Pecorino wine taste like?
Pecorino makes a dry white wine with more body than most Italian whites, citrus and orchard fruit, a herbal note, and a faintly bitter almond finish. Its acidity makes it suit salty and savoury food rather than delicate dishes.
Q.Who makes the Pecorino served at Filomena?
The Pecorino at Filomena is made by Tenuta Ulisse, a family winery founded in 2006 by the brothers Luigi and Antonio Ulisse at Crecchio in the province of Chieti, Abruzzo, Italy, on clay and limestone hill sites.
Q.Where can I drink Italian white wine in Larnaca?
Filomena Pizzeria Napoletana, at 1 Aristotelous in Larnaca, Cyprus, pours a short list of wines from small growers, including Pecorino from Abruzzo, alongside Neapolitan pizza. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 6pm to 10pm.