Pecorino is a light-skinned wine grape used in Italys eastern coastal regions, particularly in Marche and Abruzzo. A classic Pecorino-based wine is dry and minerally, straw-yellow in color and has an elegantly floral bouquet of acacia and jasmine, sometimes spiced with a faint hint of licorice.
The variety has a long, complicated and all-too-common history: it has been cultivated in the Marche region for hundreds of years but its low yields saw it replaced by more-productive grape varieties like Trebbiano. By the mid-20th Century, Pecorino was thought extinct.
In the 1980s, a local producer researching native varieties investigated a rumor of some forgotten vines in an overgrown vineyard. Cuttings were taken and propagated, and eventually grew enough grapes to make a very good wine in the early 1990s. Since then, the varietals plantings have grown exponentially, and Pecorino is grown in Marche, Abruzzo, Umbria and Tuscany.
