Cantina Tollo is a co-operative in the hills of Abruzzo, and this is its Puglian bottling: Primitivo grown in the red earth of Manduria, at the heel of Italy. The 2021 vintage was a warm, generous one across the south, and the wine carries that weight without losing its shape.
- Primitivo, the grape of Primitivo di Manduria.
- Puglia, southern Italy, hot and coastal.
- 2021, a warm vintage across the south.
- Full body, medium tannin, medium acidity.
- 14% alcohol, dry.
How it is made
Primitivo di Manduria is a DOC appellation with its own rules, and the grape is the same one California calls Zinfandel, genetically identical, carried across the Atlantic in the nineteenth century. In Puglia it ripens early and sugars up fast in the heat, which is where the name comes from: primus, first. The vines here are old and low-yielding, and the fruit arrives in the cellar ripe enough that the winemaking is mostly about holding it together.
How it tastes
Deep red, still bright at the rim when young. Blackberry and baked plum, dried fig, a sweetness of spice that comes from the fruit rather than the barrel. The tannins are soft and the acidity medium, so the whole thing sits full and rounded rather than sharp. Earthy underneath, with a faint toasted note the blurb calls almond.
Where it comes from
Manduria sits on the Salento peninsula, where the soil is red and iron-rich and the summer is long. Primitivo has grown there for centuries, mostly as a blending grape, until the region began bottling it on its own from the 1990s. It is the grape that made Puglia a name on wine lists rather than a source of anonymous bulk.
Good to know
Primitivo and Zinfandel are the same variety, separated by an ocean and about a century of naming. The Croatian grape Crljenak Kaštelanski is the parent both came from, identified by DNA work in the early 2000s.
