Friuli food: San Daniele ham, cured in one comune

Friuli Venezia Giulia's flagship protected food is Prosciutto di San Daniele DOP, in the EU register since June 21, 1996, and it can only be made inside the 35 square kilometers of one comune, San Daniele del Friuli.

One comune, 35 square kilometers, 252 meters up

The production zone of Prosciutto di San Daniele is the comune of San Daniele del Friuli alone, in the province of Udine: 35 square kilometers at 252¹ meters above sea level.

The pigs come from much further. They may be raised and slaughtered in ten regions: Friuli Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Umbria, Tuscany, Marche, Abruzzo and Lazio.

So the name protects a place of curing, not a place of farming, and that is the single most useful thing to know when you read the label.

Two ingredients, 400 days

The specification allows Italian pork legs and sea salt, nothing else, and a minimum cure of 400² days. No additives are permitted.

Each ham keeps its trotter, which gives the guitar shape it's known by, and weighs 12.5² to 17.5 kg². In countries that ban the trotter it's sold without, at 12 to 17 kg.

The consortium was founded in 1961, decades before the DOP. It doesn't publish the specification's parameters in HTML, so these come from the Qualigeo portal, and the number of producers and the yearly output haven't been verified, so neither is given here.

Sauris, Montasio, Pitina

The ministry's list gives the region three more food names: Montasio DOP, Prosciutto di Sauris IGP, registered in 2010, and Pitina IGP, registered in 2018.

Sauris is a second ham from the same region, which makes the San Daniele rule easier to read: what the DOP fixes is the town where the ham is cured.

Wine: four DOCG, one shared

Friuli Venezia Giulia holds four DOCG wines on the 2026 ministry count. One of them, Lison, straddles the border with Veneto and is counted in both regions, which is why the regional totals add up to 80 against a national 79.

The names of the other three aren't among the figures verified for this site.

Going to San Daniele

San Daniele del Friuli is the one place where every Prosciutto di San Daniele is made, so a visit there is a visit to the whole production zone.

Which curing houses take visitors, and on which days, isn't something we've verified. Ask the consortium before driving up.

For the rest of the region see Friuli Venezia Giulia, Palmanova and UNESCO in Friuli Venezia Giulia; for the labels, DOP and IGP.

↑ Contents