JK.14 Lirica Primitivo di Manduria DOC 2020

GOLD MEDAL: Mundus Vini
91 POINTS: Wine Enthusiast
90 POINTS: James Suckling

Primitivo is one of Italy's greatest grapes. It is thought to have arrived in Puglia, the heel of Italy, in the 18th century from across the Adriatic Sea via the Croatian coast. Its Italian name was derived from its early ripening nature. Monk and botanist, Don Francesco Filippo Indellicati, named the variety Primitivo from the Latin "primativus" or "first to ripen". 

It is a grape that is rich in colour though its skin is delicate and thin. At its most simple, it produces wines that are fruit-forward, fleshy and opulent with notes of ripe cherries, blackberries, sometimes fig and a whiff of black pepper. But at its most qualitative, it creates powerful, complex, savoury and age-worthy reds.