Puglia

Vines were grown and wine was made since 2000 BC by the Phoenicians followed by the ancient Greeks who colonized southern Italy between the VIII and VII Century BC. The wines of this region were very much appreciated by the ancient Romans as reported by Pliny the Elder and by other poets and historians of the time. Frederic II Hohenstaufen, who built the beautiful “Castel del Monte” castle in 1240, was an “ante litteram” wine enthusiast. Viticulture flourished during the medieval times and in the following centuries. Up to 1919, when unfortunately the vineyards were hit by Phylloxera also in this region, great quantities of Apulian wine were sent to northern Italy and to France to make up for the lower production due to the terrible aphid. It then took a lot of hard work and many years in order to replant the vineyards and to recover the grape varieties. The Apulians give a lot of importance to good food: in fact the cuisine of this region is unique. Just to give you a couple of examples, during Easter the hostesses of the Apulian “masserie” (or estates) have contests on who can produce the major amount of courses for the Easter lunch without using a freezer! A McDonald’s restaurant had to close down in the town of Altamura because the inhabitants, quite rightly so, preferred the autochtonous “focaccia”: pensioners used to buy a piece of “focaccia” and eat it in the McDonald’s restaurant only because it had air conditioning (the summers are extremely hot in this region)! Although wine production in this region has followed criteria of quantity rather than quality for a very long time, many producers are now focussing on the recovery and improvement of the indigenous varietals and on the production of high quality wines with extremely interesting results. Our selection offers you lovely wines from two lovely zones: the “Castel del Monte” appellation, where the homonymous castle stands, and the Salento Peninsula, the “heel of Italy”, where one can visit the breathtaking baroque town of Lecce.