What to eat with the 2021 Rosso

The 2021 Rosso is not a shy wine. It wants something on the plate that can hold its own — ripe tannin, dark fruit and a little cedar from eighteen months in French oak all ask for fat, salt and a slow-cooked edge.

At home we reach for lamb first. A shoulder, rubbed with rosemary from the terrace and roasted low until it falls apart, does more for this wine than almost anything else we've tried. The tannins soften, the fruit opens up, and the whole thing tastes a shade sweeter than it did in the glass alone.

Aged pecorino is our other constant. We keep a wheel from a neighbour two valleys over, and a few thin slices with the Rosso after dinner is as close to a ritual as we have. The salt and the sharpness cut straight through the wine's structure.

If you want to go further, wild boar ragù over pappardelle is the dish we'd choose for a table of six. It's rich, slightly gamey, and holds up to a wine this serious without disappearing underneath it.

None of this is a rule. It's just what's worked, vintage after vintage, at our own table on the hill.