Puglia, Italy

Guttarolo

Miro 2022

£26

Buy

GUTTAROLO
Miro 2022
Puglia, Italy

If only all Primitivo was as joyful and uplifting as this. Here the grapes are fermented on the skins for a week and aged in vats until the beginning of the following spring. Bottled young and brimming with life, it is bright cherry red in the glass and heady with earthy, sweet flavours of plum, beets and iron. Pure and vibrant, it works so well alongside the kind of rustic dishes you find in Puglia’s trattorie.

Primitivo


ABOUT THE PRODUCER

Cristiano Guttarolo’s wines are unlike any others from Puglia.

Cristiano’s masseria can be found just outside the village of Gioia del Colle, where his seven hectares of vineyards and old olive trees are planted some four hundred metres above sea level over the rugged terrain of the Murge Plateau.

Here, daytime temperatures are cooler than usual thanks to a strong breeze from the Adriatic, and the site’s elevation brings fresh evenings. The unique landscape produces wines that are thrillingly unique. Heady with wild, sunkissed fruit, the limestone of the karst imparts a luminous quality, whilst the unique climate allows them to retain a lightness so often missing in this part of the world.

In the vines, Cristiano takes a decidedly hand-off approach. Working organically and eschewing the use of chemicals, he prefers to let wild herbs and flowers grow for much of the year and as a result the farm teems with life.

In the cantina, he works in the simplest of fashions, bottling his wines with no additions in the spring following the harvest, in the hope of capturing the energy of the place he calls home.