Pillastro Nero 2016 Rosso Puglia IGP

Thanks, Easter Bunny!! This year, the Easter Bunny brought me dark chocolate Cadbury’s mini eggs from the heart of the Motherland AND this sumptuous 60/40 Cabernet Sauvignon/Primitivo blend from 80-year-old vines in the Pugliese heel of the Fatherland. To clarify, in my house, the Motherland is England, where I was born, where my late mother grew up and is now buried, and where most of my family lives, and the Fatherland is Italy, where my late father’s family hails from, in their case: Naples, Campania, and the Amalfi Coast.

Puglia tends to get a bad rap in the wine world because historically, any wine that isn’t sold by the jug to locals is made by one of a few conglomerates and sold as just whatever. Things have been changing in recent years and Holy Easter Eggs, this wine is a prime example of that. I love this wine, and by saying I love this wine, I might finally, finally, GRUDGINGLY have to admit that I like zinfandel, because primitivo is a relation of zinfandel. In the twisted world of inbred wine genetics, it could be zin’s parent or cousin or drunk uncle, who knows, but they are closely related. Aside from the fact that just the bottle is impressive: big, dark, and heavy, the wine contained inside is pretty mind-blowing. Cantine Due Palme, the winery that dropped this stunner, has several notable wines, but their Nero (nero = black in italiano) is going to be the one to which I compare the rest. Additionally, Signore Angelo, their chief winemaker, is spearheading a campaign to preserve the region’s alberello bush vines from being unceremoniously ripped out and replaced with younger stock. Grazie, Signore, on behalf of all non-trophy wives everywhere who have not been replaced by the newer model just because the newer model puts out easily more than it holds back seductively. Old vines = fewer grapes = much more intense and rewarding flavors. Nero is an apt name for this oxblood-ruby wine, because as my husband accurately pointed out, blinding sunlight doesn’t penetrate its depths.

The nose is a heady mix of super-ripe black cherries, a hint of smoke, deepest, darkest bramble fruits and plum, a touch of violet, and a sprinkle of cinnamon, underpinned with a rustic tang. The taste is more or less identical to the smell, obviously a bit more concentrated before aeration. It’s mouth-filling and complex, somehow refined and rough all at once and in the most wonderful way, like finding perfectly ripe blackberries growing in the sun while you are on a walk in the country and so of course, you have to stop and eat a few or maybe several. You eat those free-range blackberries knowing that people pay a good amount of money for organic blackberries at the local market, but here you are, eating them from a bush you found on the side of a dirt road in the middle of the sunny countryside and aren’t you lucky? That’s the experience you get to have while drinking this luscious wine.

And yes, I have accidentally foraged ripe berries several times in my life, starting when I was four years old and my siblings and I found a giant blackberry bramble at a campsite while we were moving across the country. That’s how this wine tastes: huge, dark bramble fruits enhanced by the simplicity of the countryside and the slightly illicit understanding that you’re having something others don’t know about or haven’t discovered, all with an ultra-smooth finish and light tannins that positively glow with the knowledge that you are drinking something truly wonderful that others might skip over. This wine tastes how Easter used to be celebrated when it was the Pagan New Year, a time of rebirth and growth and unrestrained life. Frankly, it tastes how Easter is still celebrated in rural Italy, which is with a full exuberance that blends catholic tradition with pagan lust for life. The finish is long and lush and not unlike dark chocolate-covered dried cherries with light, welcome tannins that act almost like a justified “ta da!” at the end of this gorgeously ripe red. While it comes from a designated geographic area in Italy (the IGP in the name), it’s not as specific and protected as a DOCG wine, but I would offer that it’s at that level. I have been seeking out Pugliese primitivos and primitivo blends for years, even when people were saying no thank you to the slightly rough around the edges, inconsistent, frequently barnyard-scented wines made from that grape in that part of Italy, and so I am happy to report that, with wines like this, Puglia generally and primitivos specifically should be enjoyed by all who love rich, complex reds. Drinking this one is an event in and of itself, but this is a wine that stands up well to southern Italian favorites like eggplant parmigiana, flavorful roasts, and tomato-based sauces. This welcome discovery came from Laithwaite’s Wine online and sells for $21.99 per bottle, which is a bargain for a red this wonderful. It’s 14% alcohol on the wine scale, so it won’t get you as hammered as a California Zinfandel, but you can’t maybe put away glass after glass unless you have the aforementioned eggplant parmigiana on board, and admittedly, I struggle to stop with one glass of this wine. The cat didn’t help me with this one, but my husband sure did.

Just some lovely photos of one of my many bookshelves and a bunny laying Cadbury's royal dark mini eggs. Because why not? This wine was fun to photograph with its cool, Art Nouveau label...