Producers
Duca Carlo Guarini
We are a family with a thousand-year history and a strong bond with our land. We cultivate 700 hectares of estates and farms in Salento in vineyards, olive groves, many arable land with vegetables and ancient cereals respecting traditions without renouncing innovation. Our mission is to protect the wine heritage of Salento, the one of Negroamaro, Primitivo, Black Malvasia. This is how we make our wines from native grapes. All mono varietal and organic certified, produced with expertise and sincerity, always looking for the best expression of our land, respecting the environment and the consumers. And this is because only a vineyard cultivated directly, without the use of synthetic chemical products, with risk, passion and hard work can give the right feeling and make it a “must” wine, frank and drinkable.
Puglia
If Italy is the largest producer of wine in the world, it is largely thanks to Puglia, which produces more than any other Italian region, about 17% of the total!
Viticulture is deeply rooted in local traditions but until 20 or so years a large proportion of Puglia’s grapes were used to add “substance” to wines produced in the rest of Italy and France. Thankfully this is no longer the case and Puglia now boasts 25 different DOC areas and some excellent vintages of its own.
The most widely grown grape variety is Negroamaro (literally ‘black bitter’). Almost exclusively cultivated in Puglia, Negroamaro is used to produce some of the region’s best wines, including Salice Salentino. The epithet of most famous grape, however, goes to Primitivo, whose wines, including the Primitivo di Manduria, are generally high in alcohol content and full in body. Curiously, the Primitivo grape shares its genetic make-up with California’s Zinfandel varietal.
White wines in Puglia count for less than 20% of the overall production but are gradually growing in importance. Local grapes such as Bombino Bianco, Bianco d’Alessano and Verdeca rub shoulders with international varieties including Chardonnay and Sauvignon to produce some excellent results.
