Latest Releases from Italy’s South: The Wines of Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia and Sardinia

BY IAN D'AGATA | FEBRUARY 26, 2020

Historically, culturally and traditionally, “Southern Italy” refers to the regions of Abruzzo, Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Molise, Puglia, Sardinia and Sicily. This report covers the latest releases from all these regions save for Campania, Sicily, Abruzzo and Molise, which I have already written about in separate articles on Vinous over the last year. In fact, Italy’s south is often referred to as the mezzogiorno (“noon”), much as the French speak of a Midi in southern France; both terms refer to the midday heat and sun that characterize the two lands. Grouping all these Italian regions together makes historical sense, as they were once under the rule of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. (In more modern times, Italy is also commonly though technically incorrectly divided in thirds based on geography, and Abruzzo and Molise are often included in Central Italy). In fact, it can be argued that Italy is not one country (save for when the Italian national soccer team plays, or during the Olympics) but rather a collection of very different regions and people, each harboring its own cultures, traditions, foods and history. Things are of course no different when it comes to wine: each region boasts its own set of very specific grape varieties and wines. So what people grow and drink in Basilicata has practically nothing in common with the grape varieties and the wines of Sardinia and Sicily, for example.

Gregory Perrucci in his old Primitivo vines

The Grapes and the Wines

Puglia is mostly a red grape region: it’s the land of Primitivo (better known as Zinfandel in the United States and Tribidrag in Croatia), Negroamaro and Uva di Troia (also called Nero di Troia, but the variety’s official name is the former). And even though these three grapes inhabit the same small geographic area of Italy, each expresses very different scents and tastes, allowing the production of wines that differ greatly in their aromas, flavors and textural profiles. Primitivo ripens very early (in Puglia’s hot summers, it’s usually picked in mid-August) and its wines feature flavors of ripe red cherry and tobacco, with little in the way of tannic clout. Negroamaro offers herbs, red and blue fruit, licorice and tar, plus a curious note of shoe polish that is very characteristic of its wines. Last but not least, Uva di Troia gives the lightest wines of the three: medium-bodied, very refined beauties that are quite unlike the much richer, fleshier Primitivos and Negroamaros. But Puglia is also home to other grape varieties whose high quality has only been recently recognized; these cultivars have become the source of monovariety wines only in the last decade or so. The list includes red grapes Susumaniello, Bombino Nero, the two different Malvasia Neras (di Brindisi and di Lecce) and Ottavianello (better known as Cinsault), while the white grapes are Bianco d’Alessano, Bombino Bianco, Minutolo, Moscato Bianco and Verdeca. The last of these varieties offers a clear sign of how times have changed for Puglia’s wines. Verdeca was once mostly used to make Vermouth, but today it is the source of many juicy, fresh whites that marry well with the region’s seafood cuisine.