History and recipe of wine with percoche: the famous Neapolitan sangria

L’estate in Campania is synonymous with wine with percochea kind of Sangria bella made with a characteristic variety of peaches, with a very compact pulp. A real must warm afternoons: whether you are at home, in a trattoria or in a large restaurant, the pitcher of wine with percoche is always there in ambush. Remember: first you drink the wine and then you taste the “flavored” pieces of fruit.

The history of wine with percoche: sangria from Campania

The nickname is given by the simile conceptual of the two recipes: wine and fruit for a pleasant and thirst-quenching combination, but in reality there is much more than that. There centuries-old tradition of wine with percoche, typical of Campania but also attributable to Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria, derives precisely from Spanish dominations dell’ex Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Spanish royalty import the sangria in the South and the Neapolitans modify it to their liking. The cost of sangria is too high for the people who prefer to use percoche: a kind of cross between peach and apricot, with a yellow skin, smooth and without wrinkles, with a firm but not hard pulp, and a particularly sweet taste with some bitter veins. Percoca does not make a furore in the Neapolitan nobility and therefore the peasants are forced to eat the unsold. In reality this is not a sacrifice: the percoche are delicious.

In addition to varying the fruit, the vino obviously: for sangria they are used Grenache, grenache o nunproduced in the area of Riojathree red wines that give the drink its name (sangria stands for “blood”); for the southern drink they use the Easier and the Gragnano mostly. In trattorias you can find it with the classic “farmer’s wine”, usually white wine, the best to combine this type of fishing. Also excellent is a version of Caserta withasprinioa particularly sour Aversa wine that goes perfectly with the sweetness some fruit.

In addition to the aforementioned southern regions, there is a version of wine with percoche also in Northern Italy: in Liguria there is a practically identical preparation made with local peaches not yet ripe.

The recipe for wine with percoche

Unlike sangria which has a longer process due to lots of fruits, this recipe is very simple. The Spanish version is practically a wine-based punchthe Italian one is literally what it promises to be: wine and peachesit just is.

Choose the wine of your choice: we recommend any product of yours region, without paying too much attention to color. Follow your heart and you will see that you will enjoy the drink to the fullest. Choose it more sour if you want a contrast o sweeter if you want the tastes of wine and fruit to be in tuning. Lava carefully the percoche e peel thempour a liter of wine into a jug and then cut the peaches into pieces: make them irregular and then dip them into the wine so as to hear a pleasant sound of “pluff“. 1

Once you have cut the pieces you just have to put the jug in the fridge and serve after a couple of hoursthe time for alcohol and fruit to amalgamate and for everything to happen cool down. Serve in a large glass, dropping a few piece of percoca in the glass of the guest and that’s it: a simple and very tasty drink, perfect as at the end of the meal. 2