Description

Masso Antico Salento Primitivo is a beautiful red wine from Australian palates. The greatness of Primitivo (Zinfandel) is evident from the start. The lifted nose shows red and dark fruits, a hint of prunes and a lovely spice. On the palate the richness and unctious fruit spills across your tongue. There is warmth but balance and never-ending flavour.  They partially dry the grapes before fermentation which concentrates the flavours and sugars and this wine is the result.

Masso Antico Salento Primitivo is ready to drink. It may improve with time in the bottle, but I feel you’ll lose some of the purity and perfume that makes this so charming.

Masso Antico Salento IGT Primitivo 2020, and all wines are eligible for at least 5% off any six bottles. And 10% off any 12 bottles. Some wines will be at a more significant discount and not subject to further discounts.

Tenute Masso Antico make modern wines from classic Puglian grapes. They use the parent company’s experience to make sure the wines are full of flavour and of consistent quality.

Masso Antico Salento IGT Primitivo 2020 Awards

Luca Maroni
Annual Italian Wine Guide 2021
99 Points

”A harmonious, maximum qualitative expression. A treasure of consistency and clarity to the senses, reveals itself with absolutely universal enjoyability Its majestic extract, its stainless fruit and aroma is so clear and soft. A wine of native viticultural qualities. With its spicy blackberry, roundness and clarity, absolutely pure. Chapeau.”

Zinfandel/Primitivo

Known as Primitivo in its home in Italy or Zinfandel in most other places. Zin/Prim offers lots of ripe sweet fruits, great density, prunes and a firm tannic and acid backbone. The wines can be approached, fleshy and easy to drink or dark, tannic and able to age like a Durif from Rutherglen. Either way, it makes one hell of a winter coat.

Salento IGT

Salento is a commonly seen IGT from Puglia. Salento sits over the three provinces in Puglia’s southern tip. The large area and relatively relaxed laws make it easy for the winemakers to produce whatever they want: Red, White, Rose, Sparkling, and Sweet wines are all OK to be made from about 50 varieties.

Puglia

Producing wine since at least 2000BC, the flat coastal shelf Puglia, facing North East toward Greece, has so much history and cultural importance. The vineyards were wiped out by phylloxera in 19^th century and an industry chasing quantity was re-established and only recently has that been addressed. 80% planted to red grapes, Puglia makes the most sweet wine of any Italian region.

Italian Wine

There are 1000s and 1000s of grapes in Italy. There are sub-alpine cool-climate regions in the North, and Sun-baked vineyards in the South. Add to that, volcanoes and many cultures within one Country. You could struggle to find anything uniform about the wines. The best of the best include Tuscan reds from Sangiovese or Cabernet. Nebbiolo from Piedmont, especially Barolo and Barbaresco. The aromatic whites of NE Italy from Garganega, Pinot Grigio, and numerous crazy blends. The volcanic wines of Mt Etna in Sicily. And many more.

The only generalisation I will make is that a lot of Italian wine is undervalued when compared to a similar French style.

Wine

Wine is the result you get from fermented grape juice. There is proof of wine production dating back 8000 years ago. Fashions, innovations and many other factors have influenced the way wine has evolved over the years.

The wine grape is special. It contains everything you need to make grape wine except for the yeast, which lives on the outside of the skins.

Human inputs can influence the final product, including the viticulture (growing) choices. And the winemaker can shape the wine to a point too.

The best wines of the world often refer to terroir. Terroir is a French term that refers to all the climatic, geological and topographical influences on a specific piece of land. And it is true that neighbouring vineyards, grown identically, can taste noticeably different.

Red Wine

Fun fact; most of the colour for wines comes from the skins. There are only a handful of grapes that have red juice. Alicante is the most well known of these grapes.

By macerating the juice on the skins, the wine gains tannins and flavours. Certain compounds change the chemistry of the wine too.

Red wines tend to have higher alcohol. More tannin and more oak flavours compared to other styles of wine. But the thousands of grapes and terroirs they grow in influence this.

The Wine Depository

I, Phil, have been running The Wine Depository since 2011. The Wine Depository exists to make sure you are drinking the good wines. You can browse and pick what is interesting to you. Or you can make contact with me. I’ll make sure you get what you want, to your palate, to your budget and to your door.