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Racemes were, in the past, an important “fruit” for the Primitivo di Manduria winemakers.
However, their scientific origin was completely unknown to them, so that they relied on a legend to give themselves an explanation.
Actually, it is fertility: basal buds are fruitful.
This second fruiting, which forms on the “femminelle” (the secondary branches of the plant), ripens about a month after the main grape bunches, thus requiring a “second harvest”.
And of course a second vinification!
These racemes are smaller, rounder and in some cases even more abundant than the main bunches harvested in early September, so that farmers used to call the Primitivo “signurinu”, meaning a small, finished and orderly noble.
This is because the plant regulates itself producing a balanced quantity of main bunches first and racemes after.
There was great respect for the racemes and great consideration for their vinification, which was in any case easier: their early October ripening yielded fruits with lower sugar content and a more marked acidity.
The result was a more elegant wine, excellent to cut the very full-bodied one produced with the main bunches, giving delicacy to the final product.
Indeed, the versatility of these late bunches was fully exploited, above all, by the several families who vinified on their own in the millstones or in their houses basements, storing everything in the famous “capasoni”. The racemes, in fact, constituted a real “second chance”. If something went wrong during the main bunches harvest (bad weather, unfertilized flowers or simply winemaking mistakes), hopes and expectations were placed on the second harvest.
For this reason some farmers vinified the racemes like the main bunches themselves, bringing them to a light or medium withering to obtain a higher alcohol content and body; others instead vinified them “alla fiorentina”, leaving the must on the skins for a very little time, obtaining a wine with a feeble color, “claret” style, generally the wine stocked for the summer months; there were also those who over ripened the racemes and then vinified them with the same technique, obtaining a sweet rosé, a gem for special occasions and family celebrations.
In any case, bunches and racemes of Primitivo, according to producers of all the towns around Manduria (Sava, Maruggio, Avetrana, Torricella) were considered two inseparable dimensions of the same plant. Their production was widespread and a meticulous care and attention was given to both. Since the establishment of the DOC, in 1974, the two harvests were rightfully considered suitable for the production of Primitivo di Manduria DOC.
Until when new consultants, “experts”, called by the Protection Consortium to express their opinion on the procedural guideline updating, convinced the presidents of the wine cooperatives (meaning unbeknown to the farmers) to repudiate these pretty bunches and, on the basis of a presumed qualitative inferiority, to oust them from the production of Primitivo di Manduria doc.
That was just 20 years ago.
Since then, the loneliness of the Primitivo racemes has begun.
Bureaucratically neglected and discriminated, but stubbornly still produced and vinified by many winemakers who know their true potential and use them as secret body double.
Felline Soc. Agricola a.r.l.
S.Comunale Santo Stasi I, 42
74024 Manduria (Ta) Italia
P.I. – C.F. 02939250730
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Through collaboration with viticulturists from different territories of the region and oenologists with experience in quality winemaking, new productions from grapes that had until then been completely neglected or unknown are “offered” to the knowledge of journalists and importers: Ottavianello, Susumaniello (recovered by Gregory with the Torre Guaceto company), Fiano Minutolo (Sammartino company), as well as new versions of Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera (Castel di Salve company), Moscato Reale di Trani (De Filippo company), Troia and Montepulciano grapes (Paolo Petrilli company) and obviously the zoning of Primitivo (red, white, black earth and sand).
The Accademia dei Racemi includes among its consultants, in addition to Roberto Cipresso and Fabrizio Perrucci, Enzo Moiso and Luca Boaretti. Some companies created by the Accademia dei Racemi are still present with honor on the market. In addition to being talked about for its wines, the Accademia dei Racemi becomes a unique reference in the regional panorama for research, the study and experimentation of native vines.
For the examinations conducted on the relationships between Primitivo and Zinfandel, the history and experiments, as well as the request to update the list of synonyms regulated by the European Union, Gregory Perrucci is admitted as the only “non-American member” in the prestigious Californian association called Zap (Zinfandel Advocates and Producers).
A few years later, precisely in June 2002 after the scientific decree of the identity between Zinfandel and Primitivo, as well as between them and the Croatian Crnjelak Kastelansky, he was a speaker at the first International Conference on Zinfandel.
He gives a talk on the origins of primitivo and its relationship with Zagarese (who has passed away) in a joint session with Doug Beckett (Californian winemaker) and the legendary Miljenko Grgich, an icon of American winemaking for having produced two of the wines that defeated the French wines in the 1976 world blind competition in Paris.
