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Administrative area · Italy

Puglia

The heel of Italy, and the source of ripe, soft, generous Primitivo and Negroamaro.

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About Puglia

Primitivo is genetically identical to Zinfandel, both descending from the Croatian variety Tribidrag (Crljenak Kaštelanski). Puglian Primitivo is typically riper and softer than Californian Zinfandel, with high alcohol and sweet dark fruit.

Primitivo di Manduria is the leading appellation. Negroamaro, the other main red, is firmer and more savoury, with a bitter twist the name reflects.

Puglia is a administrative area, not an appellation

No authority delimits this name or attaches rules to it. A political unit — an Italian region, an English county, a US county — used as a wine area because that is how the industry and its readers talk about it, not because a wine authority delimited it. That does not make it less real or less useful — it means nothing legal follows from it, and you will not generally find it on a label as a controlled designation.

Grapes

Wines from here

red

Primitivo

Puglia’s ripe, soft, dried-fruit red — genetically identical to Zinfandel but made in a noticeably different style.

red

Primitivo di Manduria

The benchmark Primitivo appellation, from old bush vines on the Salento peninsula.

Climate

Hot, dry and sunny, with very little rainfall through the growing season and constant sea breezes on the Salento peninsula, which is almost surrounded by water.

These are influences on how a wine turns out, not determinants of it. Picking date, yield, vine age and every winemaking decision sit between the climate and the glass.

Soil and geology

Iron-rich red terra rossa over limestone, shallow and free-draining.

WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.

Places within it

  • Aglianico del Vulture — Aglianico on the slopes of an extinct volcano in Basilicata, and one of southern Italy’s least known great reds.
  • Primitivo di Manduria — The Puglian home of Primitivo — the same variety as Zinfandel, established by DNA analysis, and a very different wine.
  • Salice Salentino — Negroamaro from the Salento peninsula — soft, warm and bitter-edged, and one of southern Italy’s most dependable cheap reds.

What to eat, and how to serve it

Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.

Primitivo

Serve at 15–17°C (cellar cool).

Try with fillet steak, grilled chicken or turkey.

Sources

Sources consulted