Over the Christmas festive period the consumption of alcohol will very likely increase.
White, red or bubbles, there is no discrimination when it comes to celebrating with family and friends. In Italy we have over 3,000 different grape varieties from 20 different regions. But some wines are better than others for a toast over a luxurious Christmas lunch or dinner. The most obvious choice would be Prosecco, or any type of blubbly wine.
If you really want to stand out from the crowd and make an impression on your guests this year… forget about bubbles, pick a bottle of Primitivo!
If this is the first time you hear about it, Primitivo is an absolutely stunning red wine. Full-bodied, intense and with dark berry fruit undertones that will be a pleasure to the palate. It is produced in the south of Italy, in Apulia, the heel of Italy – a region we have mentioned before in our blog posts when we talked about another red wine, Negramaro.
Apulia is known to be a region where the sun is always hot (especially during summer) and the earth is dry. So it is a true mystery how it can produce such splendid wines. Dante in one of his works defined this region:
“terra sitibonda ove il sole si fa vino” – a dry land craving for water where sun turn itself into wine.
And we don’t think there would ever a better way to describe it.
The name Primitivo can be roughly translated from the Italian as “early one”. The word primitivo itself actually means primitive, prehistoric – but in this context it refers to the variety’s early-ripening nature. Although in the past this wine was considered to be less refined than others, and used only as a blending variety, things have changed now.
Primitivo has been recognised as one of the historic grapes of southern Italy, and it has acquired worldwide recognition.