Schola Sarmenti Salento Cubardi Primitivo Rosso 2008
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At the winery, visitors may admire the breathtaking beauty of the starry vaults made of tuff stone ashlars and pietra leccese. The embrace between present and past finds its higher expression in the unique, thrilling details. Going slowly downstairs, an intense fragrance enchants your heart and you can not wait to uncover our underground world. A last step and you are finally immersed in our wine world – a barrique cellar realized from old tanks where an ideal temperature and a constant level of humidity all the year round make it the perfect place for aging wines in barrels first and refining wines in bottles later.
A place where you can breathe the air of the past while the scent of wood and the exciting smell of wine give you a foretaste of a perfect delight.
Loved for its inky, brambly, fruit-driven wines, the Primitivo grape actually has Croatian origin. Primitivo landed in Italy in the late 1800s and became an important variety in the hot, dry, southern region of Puglia. Here it was named from the Latin word, primativus, meaning "first to ripen." Somm Secret—No one knew Primitivo and Zinfandel were the same until 1994 when DNA profiling at UC Davis finally revealed the link. The grape goes by the name of Tribidrag in Croatia and is a parent to Plavac Mali.
Well-suited to the production of concentrated, fruity and spicy red varieties, Puglia is one of Italy’s warmest, most southerly regions. Its entire eastern side is one long coastline bordering the Adriatic Sea. About half way down, the region becomes the Salento Peninsula. This peninsula, bordered by water on three sides, receives moist, nighttime, sea breezes that bring a welcome cooling effect to the region, where little rain creates a challenging environment for its vines. In fact, the region is named for the Italian expression, “a pluvia,” meaning “lack of rain.”
Puglia’s Mediterranean climate and iron-rich, calcareous soils support the indigenous Primitivo, Negroamaro and Nero di Troia. Primitivo produces an inky, spicy, brambly and ripe red wine whose best expression comes from Manduria. Nero di Troia produces tannic, rustic reds from Castel del Monte DOC while Negroamaro, typically blended with Malvasia nera, plays a large part in may blends made throughout the peninsula.
Puglia produces a small amount of white wines as well, predominantly made of the fruity, Trebbiano Toscano, or light, Bombino bianco grapes.