Tharros Pesca - Cabras (OR) - Sardinia

95% of Mullet Bottarga on the market comes from Africa, Australia or Philippines. However, there's still a small production of the authentic Bottarga of Cabras: five producers, including Pino Spanu, who works the eggs of the mullet caught in the ten ponds around Oristano. Tharros Pesca of Pino Spanu was founded in Cabras in 2004: a laboratory specializing in the artisanal production of bottarga and smoked fish. We have been there to meet him this summer and we visited together the Peschiera of S'Ena Arrubia, a pond 10 km south of Oristano. Here the mullets - from which bottarga is obtained - are fished with a very typical technique from July to September. Pino showed us how to extract the egg bags, which are washed, put in salt for 4-5 hours then washed again and dried on the gratings for 8-10 days. A totally crafted work that, together with the mild climate, the local salt used for salting and exposing to the Maestrale make Cabras Bottarga unique