Primitivo di Manduria
Hot Mediterranean
Bush-vine Primitivo (Zinfandel's twin) from the hot, sandy heel of Italy, giving dense, high-alcohol reds at a fraction of California's prices.
Overview
About Primitivo di Manduria
Around the town of Manduria in Puglia's Salento peninsula, old bush vines (alberello) of Primitivo grow in sandy, red-clay soil close to the Ionian Sea. The grape ripens early and accumulates sugar readily in the heat, giving deeply coloured, high-alcohol wine with jammy dark fruit — genetically identical to California's Zinfandel and Croatia's Crljenak Kaštelanski.
A sweet version, Primitivo di Manduria Dolce Naturale, is made from partly dried grapes without fortification, though the dry style is now far better known internationally.
Primitivo di Manduria is marked on the map.
Italy
Shaded: Taranto. Map units are states, provinces or départements, so a smaller place appears as the larger area that contains it.
The land
Climate & terroir
Climate
Hot Mediterranean
One of the hottest, driest corners of Italy, tempered by sea breezes from the nearby Ionian coast. Drought-tolerant bush vines are the traditional response.
Terroir & soils
What the vines grow in
Red, iron-rich clay over limestone bedrock, sandy near the coast, giving ripe, generous fruit.
Go deeper
Rules, years & producers
What makes one year better than another follows from the climate here: hot mediterranean.
A great year
A typically hot, dry Puglian season, since Primitivo's challenge is rarely under-ripeness — consistency comes from avoiding an especially harsh drought that stresses old bush vines.
A difficult year
An unusually wet spell close to harvest, which can dilute the concentration old, low-yielding vines are prized for.