Like Puglia itself— the heel of Italy—its wine industry has gained both interest and respect just in the last five years. In the past large numbers of cooperatives sold their wines in bulk, but a younger generation has winnowed down the best varietals and terroirs to produce excellent wines that now compete, usually at a more modest price, in the global market. Today Puglia produces 32 wines in the DOC appellation and four DOCGs, with new IGP wines coming out all the time. The manifest success of Puglian wines is clear in its bottling and export figures: while Southern Italy exports only 6% of its production, 90% of Puglia’s bottled wines is sold outside Italy. Plus, Puglia is now the second largest producer (after Sicily) of organic wines.
Varietals like Negroamaro, Bombino Bianco, Gravina, and Primitivo, once unfamiliar even within Italy, are now celebrated for their distinctiveness. Primitivo got a boost when it was found to be a forerunner of what in the U.S. is called Zinfandel.
Agrotourism has also been a boon both to the region and the industry. Murgia, with many Adriatic microclimates, has proven itself fertile ground for Primitivo as well as the Nero di Troia grape as the basis for is the basis for Castel del Monte DOC wines like Rosso Canosa and Rosso di Barletta, while fragrant white varietals like Malvasia del Chianti, Greco and Bianco d’Alessano go into Gravina.
The so-called “Itria Valley Triangle” that embraces the provinces of Bari, Brindisi and Taranto produces Martina and Locorotondo, made principally from white Verdeca and Bianco d’Alessano grapes. Outside the “white city” of Ostuni, two indigenous grape varieties, Ottavianello and Susumaniello, are now being made in artisanal style and achieving a unique renown of their own.
Much of the excitement in Puglian vineyards is due to the appellation I.G.P that allows producers to work with blends outside the D.O.C., rules. A leading innovator, is Gaetano Marangelli of Cantine Menhir Salento in the southeastern part of Salento, who id dedicated to inclusiveness of viniculture and agrotourism. “Fifty years ago all the wineries also produced their own olive oil, cheese, even chickens and eggs,” he says. “I and some of my colleagues are trying to restore that.” To such end his property is home to a 40-hectare organic farm named “Anna” that supplies many of the provisions to the on-premises Origano Osteria & Store, which also has a small restaurant , and he is building a 30-room hotel. His flagship wine, with only 15,000 bottles produced, is the Pietra Primitivo Susumaniello, which I would rank with many of the finest red wines in Italy. If there were such a class as “Super Puglians,” this would be one of them.
While recently in Puglia I also visited the Vallone estate, dating to the second half of the 19th century when Commendatore Vincenzo De Marco began the production and marketing of bulk wines to France and Tuscany. The marriage of Professor Donato Vallone to his daughter Maria brought in the Flaminio Estate of Brindisi to the family, and later, at the end of the ‘60s, the Castel Serranova estate was added, now totally 500 hectares.
Over a buffet lunch at Vallone’s estate, I sampled wines obviously made by oenologist Severino Garofano according to all modern technologies. Balanced and distinctive as local varieties, they went splendidly with Puglian cheeses, meats and pastas presented.
I was very impressed by the Graticciata Rosso IGP Salento, using dried Negroamaro grapes from the ‘Caragnuli’ Cru, an 80-year-old Apulian sapling vineyard in San Pancrazio Salento. After six years of experimenting, the wine has emerged as a voluptuous and strikingly big wine at 14.5% alcohol.
Castel Serranova is a Cru from a vineyard called Vigna Castello, the origin of the most classic of the Salento blends, namely Negroamaro and Susumaniello. Vallone makes both a red and a lovely rosé from the Susumaniello, using the traditional static draining technique to give complexity. Flaminia, from an estate near Ostuni, is another line of the Vallone estates using the grape Ottavianello, with a wonderful perfume, similar to France’s Cinsault.
Vallone is dedicated to the balance of nature within the vineyards, including the reduction of unwanted invasive insects. “We used a spray that confuses the males sexually so they don’t mate,” Francesco Vallone told me, “and out of fear our workers put on masks and gloves so the same would not happen to them.”
These innovations cause Vallone to diverge from the strict D.O.C. regulations : “We want to be IGP [Indicazione Geographica Produzione] because we want to do what we want. We don’t want to be judged under D.O.C. bureaucratic standards.”
Of particular note is a new emphasis on rosé (rosato) wines in Puglia. Given the wide variety of red grapes in the region, innovative winemakers have picked up on the current fashion for rosés as a year-round wine, not one just for summer months. Since Puglia’s rosés differ so widely, from pale pink to deep rose, there are different levels of complexity and intensity, so that they go especially well with the bounty of seafood that is the mainstay of the region’s gastronomy. Those made from Nero di Troia are particularly rich—they are called the ”black rosés of Troy.” As with many “lost” varietals, Bombino Nero was rediscovered in Puglia and is one of the principal grapes used for rosés, acquiring a prestigious D.O.C.G. appellation fo B,bino Nero Rosati Castel del Monte. Tuccanese is also a re-discovered grape, thought to be a clone of the hearty Sangiovese. Aleatico, of Greek origins, is considered a semi-aromatic grape variety, derived from Moscato, and having a wonderful perfume. It is grown as a DOC wine in the areas of Bari, Brindisi, Taranto, Lecce and Foggia. The Primitivo, whose resurrection as a versatile grape has led to innovations, produces a bold, deeply colored rose with plenty of spice. Ottavianello has also had a resurgence in the current century, especially around Brindisi, often made in a light, pale style with good aromatics.
The best resource for information on Puglia’s wine is the Association Puglia in Rosé (https://pugliainrose.it/en/home/).
As recently as 2015 the authoritative Oxford Companion to Wine warned that, “what Puglia urgently needs is to ensure the survival of its centenarian bush vines and most interesting indigenous varieties, and, ideally, a viticultural in winemaking institute . . . to shape its future.” That future arrived far more quickly than anyone could have imagined.
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