In short. Puglia is one of the largest wine regions in Italy: more than 25 DOC denominations, four DOCG, six regional IGT zones and all five provinces involved. It is built on native black grapes — Negroamaro, Primitivo, Uva di Troia, Malvasia Nera — and for most of the twentieth century it sold them to other people to put in their bottles.
Wine has been made here since before the Romans wrote about it — and they did write about it. What changed recently is not the vineyard: it is that the wine now leaves the region with an Apulian name on the label.
Written about, two thousand years ago
Wine production in southern Italy, and in Puglia in particular, goes back a very long way; the Phoenicians, who traded here extensively, already valued what came out of it. The Romans left it on record: Tibullus (54 BC), Pliny the Elder and Horace (65 BC) were all complimentary about this strong wine, and added useful detail on how it was made.
Much later, Frederick II of Swabia did a great deal during his reign to promote the vine in a land already suited to it.
Why the denominations are so recent. Behind every Apulian DOC there is a set of rules fixing the towns, the permitted grape percentages, the minimum strength and, often, the ageing required to write riserva on the label. Most of them were drawn up between the 1960s and the 1980s — the moment when Puglia stopped being a supplier of must to other regions and started claiming a wine identity of its own.
The grapes to know
- Negroamaro — literally black and bitter, the backbone of the Salento reds and the base of most of its denominations. It also makes the region’s best rosés.
- Primitivo — grown around Manduria and Gioia del Colle, and genetically the same grape as Zinfandel. It ripens earlier than almost anything else, which is where the name comes from.
- Uva di Troia — the third grape, and the one that belongs to the north: Castel del Monte, Barletta, Canosa, Cerignola, Cacc’e mmitte.
- Malvasia Nera — the softening partner in a great many blends.
The two that carry Apulian wine abroad have a piece of their own: Primitivo and Negroamaro.
The denominations, area by area
The Salento has the highest concentration of them, almost all built around Negroamaro — the grape shifts character from one town to the next. The best known outside Italy is Salice Salentino, recognised in 1976 and made in six styles. Around Taranto sits Primitivo di Manduria, the red that stands for the whole region; some reconstructions have the grape arriving from Dalmatia more than two thousand years ago, and DNA analysis does link it to Croatian varieties.
In the north, Castel del Monte is the most elaborate denomination in Puglia — nine different types, recognised in 1971 — and Aleatico di Puglia is the odd one out: a sweet wine from dried grapes, made across the whole region rather than in one set of towns, and needing three or four years before it is opened.
The ones with a page here
- Alezio DOC — Negroamaro, red and rosé, from behind Gallipoli
- Brindisi DOC — at least 70% Negroamaro, and a Vinitaly gold medal
- Copertino DOC — Negroamaro up to 100%, the clearest expression of the grape
- Galatina DOC — the youngest of the Apulian DOCs, in five styles
- Gravina DOC — a white from the Murgia, and a passito
- Cacc’e mitte di Lucera DOC — Uva di Troia, and the best name story in the region
- Rosso di Cerignola DOC — from the Tavoliere, and a DOC since 1974
Beyond the DOCs. Not everything worth drinking here sits inside a disciplinare. Tufo, from Fiano minutolo, is intensely floral and among the least known interesting whites of the region; the Murgia makes a fresh sparkling white IGT that is the sensible thing to order on a hot day; and Galetto, a sparkler from Aglianico grapes, shows a side of Apulian winemaking nobody expects.
