Story of a a thousand year-long love of authenticity and taste
Salento, like most of Mediterranean regions, boasts among its typical products, food items produced both from the olive tree and the vine. Today we’re looking at traditions around vines and wines that make any holiday in Salento a fully-fledged, sensory delight. That Salento and the vine are as good as in love is witnessed by the passion that the winegrowers show in lovingly tending their glorious, well-looked-after vines day by day, right down to the tiniest detail. We see the vineyards flanking every roadside. It’s no accident that one of the most famous Salento bands even named itself after one of the most common grape varieties: Negramaro!
Salento winegrowers’ experience and the attention to quality has allowed the Salento region to gain the ‘Indicazione Geografica Tipica’ mark as a typical geographical area, and to birth a number of DOC wines. Puglia currently produces 26 DOC wines.
The most common grape varieties are, indeed, Negramaro and Malvasia. Long-recognised red wines and quality rosés are produced from these two varieties with the vineyards spread from north to south across the whole of the Salento region, exploiting the warm winds off the sea, the mild climate and the gentle rolling hillsides.
Rosé is a wine that is very popular in overseas markets, especially in America, but it’s also much in demand in Belgium, France and Germany. The most famous of these is Puglia’s Five Roses label from the Leone de Castris cellars which first saw the light of day in 1943 and was actually the first rosé to be bottled in Italy.
An enduring commitment to quality and the excellent quality-price ratio of many products has led to a marked increase in sales of quality wines at both a national and international level.
In the Salento area, in recent years, winemakers have successfully managed to combine tradition with innovation and produced high quality wines that are appreciated all over Italy. The most famous wines are without doubt the Salice Salentino DOC and the Primitive di Manduria DOC while of the companies that produce them, the most well-known is definitely the Cantine Due Palme, run by Al Bano Carrisi.
The success and the quality of any wine make every dish special. From hors d’oeuvres through to desserts, Salento offers wines for every palate and dish, from the most traditional through to the most modern and sophisticated. Refined sparkling wines and robust reds, wholly authentic in terms of both provenance and taste, never disappoint any tourist on holiday and are the pride of every restaurant manager.