Cicala Rosé

In 1997 Gregory Perrucci started the Accademia dei Racemi project, with the aim of identifying, experimenting and bringing the native varieties of Puglia to the market.

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.