Wines of…Puglia
My love of Southern Italian Wine has now another name – Primitivo from Puglia! Of sweet Polignano a mare with it’s wines!
It is their native wine, soft and dark, with a bit of dazzling flavour, full bodied but yet no oaky.
source: http://www.ravenoustraveler.com/
It is the same variety of grapes as Zinfandel wines from United States, that in the early 19th Century has earned the reputation as the American national grape.
The name Primitivo translates roughly as “early one” (similar with Tempranillo wine, which means the same thing in Spanish), and refers to the grape’s early-ripening nature. The grape is not primitive but robust and hard.
In Puglia region the italians obtain 50% of the total Italian production of wine. The wines here have some resistance to drought although is mitigates by constant sea breeze.
source: ilvinodatavola.wordpress.com
Actually there are a few number of small bottlers because they sell their production to bigger industrial producers that mix the primitivo wine with cabernet for example.
NEGROAMARO of Puglia
Dark-skinned Negroamaro is a variety of grapes with deep color, good tannins and dark berryfruit flavors. The name translated is black bitter, a refference to the dark colour and savour. Bitter does not mean like aouch bitter, but dazzly savourly.
Negroamaro is a very dark wine that was used for years as a blending wine to add color to wines from Northern Italy. HOW UNNAPPRECIATED! such a dark robust wine!