Spring 05 Cookery Course - Day 2

The second day of our Spring cookery course begun with a visit to COS and an introduction into the philosophy of winemaking at the Azienda Agricola COS, which we visited in the morning. After a tour of the cellars we had lunch with the co-owner of COS, Giusto Occhipinti, and a wonderful discussion on the differenes between wine produced at COS and wines using more industrial processes. As Giusto explained for him it was simply a case of intellectual honesty - let us not pretend that industrial wines are actually anything other than that and that the wines that really carry over the true reply of the land are those where minimal or, as in the case of COS, no chemical interventions.

We then went on to visit another Occhipinti, an organic cheese producer. There we saw the process for creating the Ragusano DOP and tasted that as well as ricotta, provoleta and a few others.

In all quite a journey through what the Sicilian countryside can produce. The third day will now turn its attention to what comes out of the sea.