Puglia recovers from another vine mess
With its pretty white trulli villages, beautiful coastline and baroque towns, southern Puglia is becoming a popular tourist destination – but it is also home to some of Italy’s best value reds.
Puglia is Italy’s second largest wine region – second only to Sicily in size – with 100,000 hectares of vineyards spread across a narrow region down into Italy’s heel. For years Puglia was dominated by co-operatives and known as Italy’s bulk supplier, producing big reds shipped north to wine and vermouth blending vats.
Now things are changing in parts of this once-neglected corner of Italy – and Puglia is starting to show its style. Seventy per cent of Puglia’s vineyards are still on flat fertile plains, mainly around Foggia in the north, which are easy to cultivate and create high yields – but to find Puglia’s real wine quality, head deep into Italy’s heel to the south.
What makes Puglia so interesting for winelovers is its own raft of grapes. With its strategic position as the gateway to Greece and the Orient, many of Puglia’s native grapes are of Greek descent which arrived centuries ago through the important trading ports of Bari and Brindisi. Up until the late 19th century, when phylloxera devastated the region, Puglia had more than 100 native grapes.
More recently the 1980s EU vine-pull scheme saw more precious old vines removed, but today Puglians have realised their worth and enthusiastic growers are searching out what is left of the gnarled vines. Winemakers are also learning how to eliminate the rough rustic style and tame once prodigiously high alcohol levels.
Negroamaro is the king grape here, black and bitter as its name suggests, making quirky robust spicy reds and fragrant rosatos. Its stronghold is on the eastern side of Salento peninsula between Brindisi and beautiful baroque Lecce.