Tenute Rubino > Apulia, land of great wines

A branch of West oriented towards the Balkans, Greece and South-Eastern Italy. A borderland, where everything finds its end and – at the same time –its beginning. By virtue of its destiny and agricultural vocation, Salento is expression of wine and grape culture, as its wine is as old as the mankind, and its agriculture is more blooming than in any other land. In Salento, a number of factors – altitude and soil composition, sun exposure and irradiation, temperature difference between night and day and ventilation – interact with each other like in a kaleidoscope, giving rise to microclimatic and pedological conditions, which can change in the range of a few kilometers.

In these areas in the middle of the Mediterranean sun belt, grape growing has been practiced since ancient times by a multitude of peoples (Greeks, Romans, Langobards, Byzantines, Normans, Angevins and Aragoneses), until today, reaching production levels, which are among the highest in Italy. Different historical periods, marked by different cultural influences, have enriched the identity of Apulia and of its people, without breaking the 'red thread' of the history, where the 'red' can be that intense and dark of Negroamaro, or that brilliant and strong of Primitivo and Susumaniello: Apulia and Salento are – first of all – lands of red and rose wines, sometimes great and unforgettable.

Today Salento has become a symbol of the new Italian frontier for quality wines. The major elements of strength are two: a viticulture of ancient tradition and ideal pedoclimatic conditions. And still, the nearness of the sea tempers the effects of a climate, which sometimes is really hard. All these factors contribute to confer to the wines that perfect combination of complexity and elegance, which makes them unique expressions of a territory, now able to bear comparison with other illustrious viticultural regions, with much longer experience in the market.

The Apulian wine panorama is extremely fragmented, numbering twenty-five Doc wines, as well as a deal of further denominations. The Apulian land is mostly flat, characterized by wide plateaus and low hills, that can extend towards the sea. Grape growing is practiced in a great part of the farm surface, sharing with olive growing an almost monocultural system. Still, the Apulian ampelographic richness is characterized by a wide range of indigenous varieties, selected in the course of centuries both by nature and by man’s hand.

Land of red-berry grape varieties, but also of a number of white grapes of old tradition and great value, as the White Malvasia, The Moscato Reale of  Trani, the Verdeca, the Bianco d’Alessano or the White Bombino of Daunia. Along with these less widespread varieties, other Italic varieties have been cultivated in the course of time, both red and white, as the Sangiovese and Montepulciano, Fiano and Vermentino. Also the international grape varieties are present, although not massively implanted, as it occurs in Sicily and Campania, with the Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier. Nevertheless – as already underlined – among the native varieties, the red-berry grapes represent the zenith of the Apulian and Salentinian oenology, with Negroamaro, Primitivo, Susumaniello and Black Malvasia. Some descriptive notes about these specific varieties are now offered.