Primitivo di Manduria

The rules start the Primitivo grape's history at the end of the 1700s, when Don Filippo Indelicati selected it among the vines of his vineyard at Gioia del Colle, near Bari; the name refers to its early ripening. In 1879 the ampelographer Frojo wrote that Primitivo was the only crop at Gioia del Colle and made a sought-after wine on its own. De Rovasenda, Molon and Dalmasso studied it later; Dalmasso noted that it buds late, ripens early and suffers in heat and long drought. A second crop from secondary shoots, the racemi, was picked about a month after the main harvest and gave a drier, more tannic and deeper-coloured wine. The Jacini inquiry of 1871-1875 on the Terra d'Otranto does not mention Primitivo.

The rules tie the area's wine to a history running from Magna Graecia to today. The DOC was approved on 30 October 1974; the Dolce Naturale, a type of it since then, became a DOCG in 2011.

The zone joins two landscapes. The Ionian arc, from the coast to the foot of the Murge, takes in communes such as Manduria, Sava, Lizzano and Maruggio; repeated sedimentary cycles since the middle Pliocene gave it a stepped profile of scarps falling to a coast of dunes. Its climate is Mediterranean, with mild winters (mean minimum 6-7 °C), hot summers (mean maximum 25-26 °C) and about 650 mm of rain, mostly in winter. The Salento part, with Avetrana, Oria, Erchie and Torre Santa Susanna, alternates near-level ground with narrow limestone ridges (serre); it is more humid, with sultry summers.

Soils are deep clay loams in the west, thinning to sandy soils along the coast, where the substrate lies 25-50 cm down. Manduria, Sava and Avetrana alternate thin and deep soils, and the Brindisi communes have well-drained sandy clay loams. Because the land is largely flat and uniform in climate, the rules set no requirement on slope or exposure. The consortium notes both alberello and trellised vines.

The rules find no limiting soil factor and consider the whole area well suited to quality vines. They tie the wine to a ventilated, bright setting and to growing and winemaking practices handed down since Magna Graecia, but give no detailed account of how place shapes taste. The wines are deep red turning garnet with age, of medium acidity, with an ample, complex nose and particular aroma, and a taste from dry to abboccato (off-dry), velvety and characteristic. The Riserva can show plum. The basic wine may keep up to 18 g/l of residual sugar.

Primitivo must make up at least 85%, with other non-aromatic red grapes suited to the provinces of Taranto and Brindisi up to 15%. New vineyards need 3,500 vines/ha, trained as Apulian alberello or on wires with Guyot or spur pruning, with the fruiting zone no higher than 1 m. The grapes may be partly dried and must reach 13% natural alcohol, or 13.5% for the Riserva; the basic wine needs 13.5% total alcohol. It may be sold after 31 March following the harvest. The Riserva ages 24 months from 1 November of the harvest year, at least 9 in wood, and may be sold two years after that 31 March.

Primitivo di Manduria Dolce Naturale DOCG is 100% Primitivo from grapes dried on the vine, on racks or in rooms. It is released from 1 June after the harvest, with at least 16% total alcohol (13% actual) and at least 50 g/l of residual sugar.