Prosciutto di Sauris

Appearance & taste

After ripening, the ham is sold whole on the bone and without the foot, and then weighs at least 8 kg. The rind is a uniform golden brown with orange shades, and the visible muscle is dark red. The meat is firm and elastic, even when sliced vertically. When cut it is rosy red, and the fat pure white or whitish pink. The ham has a delicate aroma and tastes mild and slightly sweet with a smoky note. A sample from the thigh muscle contains 57 to 65 % moisture and 4.5 to 6.2 % salt.

The ham is sold whole on or off the bone, boned in pieces, or sliced and packaged. Boning, portioning, slicing and packaging take place only in the municipality of Sauris. Each leg bears an ink stamp or a brand with the day, the month in Roman numerals and the year of the start of production, as well as the slaughterhouse. The PGI logo shows a blue oval with a green border and the yellow lettering “Sauris”, above it a white mountain profile and two green fir trees, below it two waves.

Production

The pigs are slaughtered no earlier than their ninth and no later than their fifteenth month of life. Their carcasses weigh 110.1 to 180 kg, the fresh legs 12 to 17 kg. In Sauris the legs are salted, trimmed and marked; there they rest, are smoked and dried and ripen. To this day they are smoked with beech wood from the local forests. Ripening lasts at least 400 days from the first salting. During this time a microflora, mainly of moulds, that occurs naturally in the ripening environment forms on the surface; according to the specification, the ham owes its particular flavour characteristics to it.

Origin & history

Sauris lies in a basin surrounded by mountains that stretches from east to west, in the high valley of the small Lumiei river at an altitude of over 1,000 m. Less precipitation falls here on average than in the rest of the Carnic and Julian Alps. Air currents from the mountains and from the valley, together with the reservoir, create breezes that blow uphill during the day and down the valley at night. According to the specification, this produces humidity conditions that are ideal for drying the ham. The cool air that enters the ripening rooms contributes to the mild, slightly sweet taste.

According to the specification, smoking was introduced by the very first settlers. In Sauris the smoking method taken over from Germanic ancestors combines with the Mediterranean tradition of salting; this gives the ham its smoky note.