The southern climes of Italy are home to some of the most under-recognised wines and varieties in the world of wine. Overlooked for their flashier northern cousins, these wines offer quality drinking and honest stories of where they came from. Primitivo is a grape that is genetically identical to Zinfandel, and does share of that grapes ripe dark red fruit profile. Due to its climate however, and the old volcanic soils of the area, it has an added edge of coffee bitterness and tannic grip. The 2015 bottling from Luccarelli is simultaneously complex and fruit-driven, redolent of plum, prune, cherry, and vanilla. It is on the richer side, but maintains its edge and verve with trademark southern Italian tannins and some coffee/cocoa spice. This is a real winner, a wine of honesty and power that never veers over the edge of fattiness. Great drinking.

For most of the 20th century, the Italian wine scene was absolutely dominated by a relatively small handful of wine regions, mostly concentrated in the north of the country and run by large, archaic family businesses. However, in this brave new era in which the alternative and authentic is king, the tides definitely seem to be turning. Nowadays, millennial wine drinkers are looking to the sunny, passionate, and somehow more chaotic wineries of Italy’s southern regions, and most significantly, those of Puglia. This region - the ‘heel’ to Italy’s boot - is known for powerful, full bodied wines, made from grapes such as Negroamaro, which are grown under the blazing sunshine and in the roasted earth. Here, in the Primitivo di Manduria wine region, we find the Luccarelli winery, which is quickly gaining a reputation for producing the quintessential Manduria wines and capturing the spirit of this ancient, beautiful place. Luccarelli is all about collaboration, expression, straightforward simplicity, and seeking out the best that Puglia has to offer. This is why the winery works with vineyards in the widely loved Salice Salentino DOC, and why the vintners behind the brand scour the local farms and vineyards to source the very finest, most expressive and flavourful Negroamaro grapes. Their mission is one we can all be thankful for: to pick those fruits which capture the essence of the sunny terroir and chilled out, traditional lifestyle which typifies the region, and to weave their magic as they transform them into the wines we love. The grapes chosen tend to come from impressively old vines - some of which were planted in the 1930s - and which have the kind of low yields capable of hitting the high notes when it comes to flavour, aroma and structure. The result? A set of gorgeously rich and fruity wines which transport you to this hidden corner of Italy. One sip, and you can almost see the Mediterranean sparkling in the distance, and feel the sun on your back…