Masseria Cuturi

2024 Negroamaro Salento IGT Zacinto

What a terrific variety Negroamaro is. Alas, with Primitivo around it seems it's always the bridesmaid, never the bride. But with it’s many charms on display in this Zacinto cuvée, you can see why a market in love with the heady depth and darkness of varieties like Malbec but aching for more refinement and delicacy could fall in love with an example of Negroamaro composed in this wonderfully gentle, upright, and aromatic style.

The wine gives such gorgeous aromas of third wave coffee, plum, plum skins, and cacao nibs, with some savoury hints of leather and game and a minerality, if that is the right word, reminiscent of fresh cotton fabrics. The palate is super well balanced with very likable tannins, taut fruit coming from the freshly-picked dark berries column that has only a hint of that macerated and jam’d dynamic one assumes of Puglia, rounded out with a nice touch of cold brew coffee. It is not by dint of complexity or curiosity that I find myself enamoured of this wine, but simply by its terrific balance, carrying its 14% effortlessly, and begging for another sip. This is a very well-grown and made example of what this variety does so well.