Tasting Renieri Cinta Senese DOP Prosciutto: A Guide for the Senses

Have you ever thought that tasting a great prosciutto, like our Renieri Cinta Senese DOP Prosciutto, can be a true journey for the senses? It’s not just about eating something delicious, but a more complete experience that involves sight, smell, and, of course, taste and touch in the mouth. At Renieri, we believe that learning to recognize the nuances of a high-quality artisan product makes the tasting even more rewarding. That’s why today we want to share with you a few small secrets, a kind of friendly guide to help you grasp all the richness and uniqueness of our prosciutto, the result of precious certified Cinta Senese DOP meat, our controlled supply chain, and careful, natural processing passed down through our family.

Before even bringing it to your mouth, pause for a moment to observe a slice of our prosciutto. Your eyes can already reveal a lot about its quality:

• The color of the lean meat: You’ll immediately notice a magnificent, intense, and vibrant red color. This is no accident, but the result of animals raised outdoors, free to move, and proper, long aging. Not a pale pink, but a red that speaks of vitality and concentrated flavors.
• The fat, a white or rosy treasure: The fat that envelops and infiltrates the lean meat should be pure white or at most slightly rosy, never yellowish or opaque. In our Cinta Senese DOP Prosciutto, this fat is particularly valuable: it’s aromatic, sweet, and, as we’ll see, incredibly melt-in-your-mouth.
• The marbling, a promise of tenderness: Those thin veins of fat you see within the lean part, the marbling, are another sign of great quality. They indicate that the meat will be juicy, tender, and even more flavorful.
• The small white dots (tyrosine): a virtue, not a defect! Sometimes, especially in prosciuttos with a long aging period like ours, you might notice small white dots on the surface of the slice. Don’t worry! They are neither salt nor defects, but tyrosine crystals, an amino acid that naturally forms during the slow maturation process of proteins. Their presence is actually an indicator of prolonged and well-executed aging, a small distinctive mark of high-end prosciuttos.

Now, bring the slice to your nose and let its complex and inviting aroma envelop you. What should you smell?

A good Renieri Cinta Senese DOP Prosciutto releases sweet notes of aged meat, which blend wonderfully with delicate hints of dried fruit, like hazelnut and chestnut – a precious reminder of what our pigs eat freely in the Tuscan woods. Sometimes, you might also perceive slight nuances reminiscent of moss, the damp earth of the undergrowth, and that characteristic, very pleasant cellar aroma, a sign of natural and traditional aging. The long stay in our cellars, where the air circulates freely, enriches this bouquet with elegant, never overpowering, spicy notes. Such a rich and harmonious aroma is the calling card of excellent raw material and a meticulously crafted production process.

Finally, the most anticipated moment: the tasting. This is where our Renieri Cinta Senese DOP Prosciutto reveals all its greatness.

• On the palate: Prepare for a perfect balance. You’ll taste a natural and innate sweetness, typical of well-processed Cinta Senese meat, which pairs with a gentle and delicate saltiness, never aggressive or excessive. The flavor is persistent, complex, leaving a pleasant and satisfying sensation that will invite you to another taste.
• The fat that melts in your mouth: And the fat? Don’t fear it; in fact, embrace it! In our prosciutto, thanks to the animals’ natural diet and long aging, the fat is particularly rich in unsaturated fatty acids (the good ones, that is!). This makes it incredibly soft and melt-in-your-mouth. It will gently dissolve on your palate, almost like butter, bringing with it an explosion of flavors and contributing to an extraordinary roundness and gustatory pleasure. It’s not a defect, but one of its greatest virtues!
• The texture (the “feel” in your mouth): The slice, even if thin, should be soft and tender, yet at the same time have a pleasant firmness that invites slow chewing. This is how all its wonderful aromas are gradually released, and its structure is fully appreciated.

This superior quality of RENIERI prosciuttos, resulting from the precious Cinta Senese DOP meat from our supply chain and an artisan processing that accepts no shortcuts, is not just our conviction. It has been recognized and celebrated multiple times by important awards in the world of excellent cured meats.

Accolades like the 3 Slices with an asterisk (the maximum!) from the Gambero Rosso Grandi Salumi Guide, won by our Cinta Senese DOP Prosciutto IL MAESTA’ aged over 36 months, and the 3 Slices also obtained for our Cinta Senese DOP Prosciutto aged 24 months, are for us concrete proof of the commitment we put in every day to do things in the best possible way. They are the fruit of the passion that animates our family and that we put into every single prosciutto. These awards confirm that choosing RENIERI means choosing a product of true Tuscan excellence, genuine, natural, and made with so much love for our work.

We hope this small guide has piqued your curiosity and will help you, the next time you taste a Renieri Cinta Senese DOP Prosciutto, to grasp all the nuances that make it so special. Tasting is not just eating; it’s listening with your senses to the story a product has to tell. And our prosciuttos, we assure you, have so many wonderful stories to whisper to you – stories of Tuscany, of tradition, and of a passion that knows no time.