We were asked to present a selection of Southern Italian wines to Welwyn Wine Tasting Society on Thursday. Given the range of wines we import from the deep south, this meant, in practice, almost all the wines from two estates: Paternoster in Basilicata with just five wines in their regular annual production and Rubino in Puglia who produce over a million bottles each year. Almost all of them mono-varietal wines but there’s a lot of variety between them and, on then wholes, alcohol levels are surprisingly low.
First up was Tenute Rubino’s Salento 2024 'Salende', a 100% Vermentino wine from vineyards 90m above sea level which helps cool the vines which, together with the lack of malolactic fermentation, ensures the wine will be fresh. It is: quite zingy and sherbet. A nice, easy-drinking wine, only 12% and a very fair price.
This was followed by Paternoster’s 2024 Falanghina 'Vulcanico' from Barile in central Basilicata (or Lucania if you prefer to use its Roman name). This part of the region – halfway between the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas is desolate (unlike the region’s only popular tourist destination, Matera, to the east), evoking Carlo Levi’s 1945 memoir, Christ Stopped at Eboli. The region is almost entirely mountainous or, at least, hilly, and the 8% or so of plains has poor soil so not much grows and cucina povera is what you can expect to eat. Service comes with a big smile though: the people are some of the most welcoming you could hope to meet, especially if they realise you have driven all the way there (many we met had never seen English people in the flesh before). Anyway, the wine. Pure Falanghina means lots of citrus character, especially bitter orange. It’s delicious with a nod to Sauvignon, perhaps, but with a very distinctive personality. 13% ABV.
We don’t often show rosé wines at these tastings for some reason but Tenute Rubino’s 2024 'Oltremé' from Susumaniello (Little Donkey in local dialect), a variety championed by Luigi Rubino (his father, Tommaso, wanted to plant olive groves; thankfully, his son persuaded him otherwise), has depth and personality, a year-round rosé. The vineyards are close to the sea so soils are sandy and the resulting wine fresh and elegant and just 12.5%.
The first red was Paternoster’s Aglianico del Vulture 2020 'Synthesi', one of our very favourite wines at the moment. 100% Aglianico, it has moderately high acidity and good tannins so it’s certainly ageworthy but who is going to keep a wine like this for long? Cooled lava and tuff from an eruption of now extinct Mont Vulture (no vultures these days, just buzzards and kites) 130,000 years ago means that rain water is retained for slow release during scorching summers. Pronounced diurnal shifts and vineyards at 450-640 metres above seal level make for slow ripening too, all of which helps the wine’s elegance. Still only 13% ABV!
One of the very wines from the south we didn’t present was the top red, Don Anselmo, named after the estate’s founder, who first bottled wines in 1925. In 1945 his son Giuseppe - known as Pino - took over and was the region’s first oenologist, ensuring the estate’s position as one of DOC leaders when the denominazione was granted in 1971.
From here on, all the wines are from Tenute Rubino, starting with theire Brindisi 2021 'Oltremé', again 100% Susumaniello, but this time red. I find it reminiscent of a (good) Loire Cab Franc with more explosive fruit. This is the benchmark Susumaniello from the region so, of you’ve never tried this variety, there is no better place to start. Only 13.5%.
'Miraglio', a 2021 Brindisi is pure Negroamaro has a very easy to enjoy style. There is a hint of bitterness, despite the true meaning of the variety’s name (black-black rather than black-bitter as I had always assumed) and it is a great match for pizza and pasta or anything with tomatoes in it. There is a small amount of oak maturation here. A notch up in the alcohol levels: 14%.
The Brindisi Riserva 2019 'Jaddico' is a blend of 80% Negroamaro, 20% Susumaniello from the flagship Jaddico estate, 5 miles north of Brindisi, close to the Adriatic, once owned by Cicero’s cousin, Visellius (the name of Rubino’s top Primitivo, from -slightly confusingly – the Uggìo-Punta Aquila Estate, near Brindisi). This is properly oaked, as befits a riservawith 10 months in French oak barriques and has, again, 14% ABV.
The 21ha vineyard south of Lizzano in the Gulf of Taranto produces the exceptional Primitivo di Manduria 2021 'Palombara'. Just 68 metres above sea level, it is never too cold here but rarely exceeds 30°C in the summer. Five miles from the Ionian Sea, this helps regulate the temperature in the vineyard. Very expressive but, as expected for a Primitico, it’s 14.5%.
Finally, the Brindisi 2019 'Torre Testa', another pure Susumaniello wine, named after the 16th century Saracen tower on the Giancòla canal which divides the Jaddico estate. Green harvesting in August ensures the concentration and healthiness of each individual cluster so that, towards the end of September, grapes which are slightly and naturally dried on the vine can be handpicked to produce this unique, incredibly complex and somewhat expensive wine (but, if you can’t have one of these at a wine club tasting, what’s the point?). A whopping 15.5% ABV but it wears it well.
Occasionally at these events there is a wine that slightly lets down the others in the line up for whatever reason. Not tonight though and several people commented that they had - unusually - liked every wine. Thanks to everyone at Paternoster and Rubino for making them so good. And thanks to Welwyn for inviting us to put this tasting together; a rare opportunity for us to taste a wide selection of gorgeous wines from the region in one evening.
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