Primitivo di Manduria

Styles

Principal grape varieties

Terroir

• The Arco Jonico displays a stepped landscape formed by escarpments descending toward the coast, with a dune system associated with extensive back-dune depressions.
• The climate of the Arco Jonico is Mediterranean in character, with mild winters averaging minima of around 6–7°C and warm summers with maxima of around 25–26°C, and annual rainfall of approximately 650 mm concentrated mainly in winter.
• The Salentine peninsula has a more humid climate than the rest of Puglia, with particularly sultry summers in the southern areas and mild winters that nonetheless feel bitterly cold in the presence of wind.
• In the western part of the production zone, deep clay-loam soils predominate, becoming sandier and shallower toward the coastal strip, allowing only limited root penetration.
• Along the coastal belt, very shallow clay-loam or sandy-loam soils prevail, with bedrock within 25–50 cm and little suitability for root penetration beyond 50 cm, while soils become progressively deeper moving inland.
• The communes of Manduria, Sava, and Avetrana are characterised by an alternation of shallow and deep soils, mostly of medium texture and poorly suited to root penetration beyond 50 cm.

• The Primitivo variety was selected at the end of the eighteenth century by don Filippo Indelicati in the agricultural territory of Gioia del Colle, who identified it among the varieties growing in his vineyard.
• In 1879 the ampelographer Frojo wrote that Primitivo formed the exclusive cultivation of Gioia del Colle, where it was vinified on its own into a wine of excellent flavour and quite sought-after.
• The Primitivo di Manduria appellation has been recognised as a DOC since 1974, by Presidential Decree of 30 October 1974.
• The so-called femminelle, locally known as racemi, reach full ripeness after the main harvest and were vinified on their own into a drier, more tannic, and more deeply coloured wine.

• The wines display an intense colour, red tending to garnet with age, with a broad and complex nose and a palate ranging from dry to off-dry, velvety and characteristic.
• Wikipedia describes the colour as intense red tending toward violet and then orange with aging, with a fruity bouquet of cherry, marasca cherry, plum, redcurrant, cassis, dried fig, bay leaf, and liquorice. (via Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0)

Facts drawn from the specification's terroir-link section by automatic interpretation — see the source.

All appellations in Italy

Sources

• eAmbrosia register (EU) — File number PDO-IT-A0565
• Official trade body site — Consorzio di Tutela del Primitivo di Manduria