Negroamaro A Mano 2024

Negroamaro is the grape variety of Salice Salentino, its name means ‘Bitter Black’, but in the right hands it can produce wines of beautiful flavour, with ripe soft tannins, and a lovely finish.  This is such a wine!  A recent find of the 2015 vintage in our cellar has revealed it is capable of lovely evolution.

On our tours to Puglia in 2016 we met Mark Shannon at a beautiful Masseria, a typical farmhouse restaurant. Mark is a Californian who set up A Mano wines with his Italian partner Elvezia back in 1998 and they very quickly established a reputation for making brilliant wines from local indigenous grapes such as Negroamaro, Susumaniello, Minutolo, Flanghina and Aleatico. And, of course, Primitivo. Jancis Robinson particularly credits Mark for having introduced top class Primitivo from Puglia to the United States!

Big wines need big food and while we enjoyed this wine in Puglia with a lunchtime buffet, back home I would be tending towards a beef casserole.  Cheesewise you need to find something with intense flavour and ‘bite’ to keep up with the wine, Teddingingon Cheese’s Pecorino Fiore Sardo would be a good match.