2018 “62 ANNIVERSARIO”, Primitivo di Manduria, San Marzano. Puglia

San Marzano is the name of the producer but also the area, which is on the Salento peninsula in the deep south east of Italy (on the heel).
It’s a hot, arid, windy area – tough for farming anything except the hardiest of grape varieties. And both Negromaro and Primitivo do thrive in these conditions.

Primitivo is now accepted to be the same grape as California’s Zinfandel. Here the fruit from old bush vines was fermented cool before ageing for 18 months in French and American oak barrels.

The bottle size and shape says it all. Big, ripe, rather brash but very impressive. Not for modernists.