2015 Giuseppe Altenasio Primitivo di Manduria Dolce Naturale DOCG

Sweet, but not cloying, this Manduria Dolce Naturale DOCG actually has some tannin to it and a refreshing acidity. Plum, raisin, coffee, it's actually the perfect accompaniment to chocolate (don't fall for the dry red + sweet chocolate pairing myth! It doesn't work...).

Sweet wines open up wine pairing doors and are extremely versatile. Try with pate'/ liver mouse, Mediterranean meat dishes cooked with dried fruits, chocolate, and dark fruit pies.

Puglia's only appellation for sweet wine, the Manduria Dolce Naturale DOCG is not a much sought after wine. It's sweet, which some people are adverse to, and its production quantities for the zone are low. 

The Alessandro Attanasio farms seven hectares of primarily bush-trained Primitivo in the province of Taranto, on the northern coast of the Ionian Sea in southern Puglia. He works these stingy old vines—which give him 40 hectoliters per hectare in a bountiful vintage, and 20 in a tough one—according to old agrarian practices: following the phases of the moon; employing only copper and sulfur to treat against disease; fertilizing with manure and humus; and these being bush vines, conducting all vineyard work manually and harvesting by hand. This zone’s reddish soils of silty clay over friable limestone yield wines of intensely rich fruit shot through with a cleansing minerality and framed by a savory salinity that speaks of the nearby Ionian, and Alessandro harnesses these elements into Primitivo that demonstrates with authority that equilibrium can exist even in wines of extremes.