Ippolito 1845 Pecorello 2025
£15.95
The wine
An elegant and vibrant expression of this native Calabrian grape, showing citrus, yellow fruit and mineral tones through to a beautifully balanced palate, full of flavour and with a lovely fresh finish. Pecorello is rarely seen outside the region.
Pecorello is a Calabrian white found almost nowhere else and reduced to a handful of hectares before a few producers, this family among them, committed to keeping it. It gives citrus and white-flower aromatics with a firm acidity that is unusual this far south, and it has no relation to the Pecorino of the Adriatic coast.
The producer
Ippolito 1845
View all Ippolito 1845 winesIppolito 1845 is the oldest working winery in Calabria, founded in the year its name carries and now in the sixth generation of the same family. It sits at Ciro Marina on the Ionian coast, in the toe of Italy.
Ciro claims one of the longest continuous winemaking histories anywhere. The Greeks planted here in the eighth century BC when this was Magna Graecia, and the wine of Kremissa is said to have been given to victors at the ancient Olympic Games. Gaglioppo, the red grape of the appellation, is the direct descendant of those plantings and is grown almost nowhere else.
The estate also works Greco Bianco, Greco Nero and Pecorello, all Calabrian natives, and the family have done much to keep the last of these in cultivation. Calabria remains one of Italy's least known wine regions despite that history, which makes these among the better-value serious wines in the country.
