San Marzano DOP Peeled Tomatoes

The sauce tomato of record, from the volcanic plain it is named for. Certified, serial-numbered, whole.

San Marzano is a place before it is a tomato: a village on the Sarno plain under Vesuvius, where volcanic soil grows the long, thick-fleshed fruit every serious sauce descends from. Diana Attianese was raised there, in a family that has canned tomatoes for generations, and her house — run by a team of women — puts up the real thing.

The DOP is strict on purpose. Only the historic varieties, grown only on this plain, picked only by hand at ripeness, and canned only whole or in fillets — never as passata. Each tin carries the consortium's seal and its own serial number. That is what those four letters cost, and why they mean something.

This is the tomato for the sauces you build: crushed by hand into oil for a pomodoro, the base of a proper ragù, the only argument a pizza sauce needs. Low in acid, deep in flavour, it wants time more than it wants ingredients.

Beside Capobianco's sweet Puglian datterini, this is the classicist: two regions, two schools, both right.

Meet the House: A women-founded house growing San Marzano tomatoes in the volcanic soil under Vesuvius, in the village they're named for.

Complete your table: Spaghetti, Mancini — pomodoro, the reference version · Coratina Extra Virgin, Muraglia — the south, twice · Spyro, Capobianco — the Puglian answer, for tasting the difference.