Food & wine

Cannonau, pane carasau, culurgiones, sheep's and goat's cheeses: Ogliastra's cooking comes from the interior, not from the sea.

Culurgiones from Ogliastra: potato, cheese and mint parcels — Photo: Marica Massaro · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

It surprises visitors who come for the beaches: the food tradition here is pastoral and agricultural. Fish exists, but it is not the centre of the historic repertoire.

Cannonau is the crop that gives the interior its identity, with Jerzu as the Ogliastra reference. Culurgiones — potato, cheese and mint parcels — are the dish most often associated with this part of the island.

The essential answers

What is it?: The cooking and viticulture of Ogliastra, pastoral and agricultural at root.
Where is it?: Inland Ogliastra, with Jerzu as the reference wine district.
When to go?: September and October for the harvest.
Where to stay?: A farm property such as I Mandorli, at Triei, is the most coherent context for eating in this part of Sardinia.