Speck Alto Adige IGP: Affumicatura e Stagionatura

Alto Adige / South Tyrol, Trentino-Alto Adige

The defining cured meat of South Tyrol: a bone-in pork leg cured in a proprietary mix of salt, pepper, juniper, rosemary, and bay, alternately cold-smoked (beech wood, max 20°C to prevent cooking the fat) and air-dried in mountain air for a minimum of 22 weeks. The technique — 'a little smoke, a little air' — creates a product that is neither fully smoked (like German Schwarzwälder Schinken) nor purely air-cured (like San Daniele). The IGP defines the production zone as Alto Adige only.

• Bone-in ham cold-smoked with softwood — the tradition Speck differentiates itself from with its alternating air-cure → Schwarzwälder Schinken German · (Black · Forest)
• Bone-in pork leg air-cured in mountain conditions — the pure air-cure tradition on the opposite end of the spectrum → Jamón serrano (mountain air-cured) Spanish
• Mountain-cured, lightly smoked ham from an Alpine tradition contemporaneous with Speck → Jambon de Savoie fumé French · (Savoie)

Lean, firm, mildly smoky with a pronounced pepper-juniper crust and a sweet, clean finish — the Alpine synthesis of smoke and mountain air