Negroamaro is Puglia's great survivor. The grape takes its name from the Italian for bitter and black, and it has grown on the Salento peninsula for centuries, ripening under a sun that most red grapes cannot take. Coppi makes this one in Puglia, in the south of Italy, and the 2019 vintage gives it a firm, dark-fruited frame.
- Negroamaro, the black-skinned grape of Puglia.
- Puglia, southern Italy — the heel of the boot.
- 2019, a warm and steady growing year.
- 13% ABV, dry, medium body.
- Medium tannin, medium acidity.
How it is made
Negroamaro is a thick-skinned, late-ripening variety, and in Puglia it spends the hottest part of the summer on the vine before it is picked. The skins give the wine its deep colour and its grip. Coppi works in a region where reds have historically been made for volume, but the better bottlings pull back on extraction and let the fruit sit closer to the surface.
How it tastes
Blackberry and dried fig lead, with tobacco and leather settling in behind them. The tannins are firm but not aggressive, and the acidity keeps the dark fruit from turning heavy. A dry, medium-bodied red that finishes with a Mediterranean spice note.
Good to know
Negroamaro is grown almost nowhere outside Puglia. The grape was nearly abandoned in the late twentieth century when the region's co-operatives paid by volume and quantity mattered more than quality. A generation of growers pulled up old vines and replanted with higher-yielding varieties. The best sites survived, and Negroamaro has since become one of southern Italy's most distinctive reds.
Contains alcohol.
