2022 Produttori di Manduria Lirica, Primitivo di Manduria DOC, Puglia, Italy.
One of the tastiest values coming out of Italy’s dusty and less travelled Southern parts is Produttori di Manduria’s Lirica 100% Primitivo, AKA Tribidrag or Zinfandel, from Puglia and the Primitivo di Manduria DOC zone, with its brambly raspberry, earthy red currant, wild plum and cherry fruit, along with Mediterranean herbal shrub, sticky lavender, old cedar and briar spice. This delicious example of Primtivo comes from sustainable vines and saw a traditional fermentation and aging with this 2022 vintage seeing just 6 months in old Slavonian oak cask before bottling to capture freshness as well as provide for gentle tannin and terroir nuances. I had this dark garnet hued wine with meaty pasta and it was fabulous, performing nicely with good balance and lifting the delight of the dish. The old bush vines, near to the Ionian Sea, and the clay-loam, iron rich and calcareous soils add a distinctive character the wines, which shows through here in this Lirica bottling, with its rustic simplicity and charm, which I highly recommend, along with the Elegia Riserva, which is deeper and more age worthy.
This was my first time trying the Produttori di Manduria wines, and learned, it is the oldest active wine cooperative in Puglia that was first established in 1928 as “Federazione Vini di Manduria” and then converted in to a cooperative in 1932 as “Consorzio Vini e Mosti di Manduria”. Their importer, Massanois says that despite being in one of the major wine producing regions in Italy (Puglia usually ranks 2nd or 3rd in the national ranking in terms of wine produced), Produttori di Manduria is structured and operates like an Alto Adige cooperative, working with 400 small growers farming 900 hectares of vineyards. Even though we now know Primitivo is a Croatian grape, which had until recently a mysterious past, finding its way to Sonoma in the 1850s and much earlier to Puglia, it still is thought of as historically and proudly Italian, and back in 1974 the Italian Government recognized a specific DOC appellation to the Primitivo made in Manduria. Leonardo Pinto has worked as the consulting winemaker at Produttori di Manduria for over 20 years and is considered one of the maestros of Primitivo, and here is a great way to start exploring his talents and the region.
($16 Est.) 90 Points, grapelive