Gianfranco Fino

Gianfranco Fino describes himself as a farmer. As an expert in olive oil, he discovered in the typical red and calcareous soil of the Manduria in southern Apulia, not far from the coast, a tiny parcel of only 1.2 hectares with old vines of Primitivo in Alberello education and decided to try it also once with viticulture. Gradually, the winegrower, who worked with great passion, and his wife Simona saved twelve small vineyards between Manduria and Sava from being cleared. More than half over 50 years old and planted with old Primitivo vines. In the Salento region, Gianfranco Fino has a small vineyard with equally old Negroamaro vines cultivated in the Alberello system. In recent years, there have also been just under ten hectares of young vineyards, which are harvested and vinified separately. Crop yields are deliberately kept very low for quality reasons.

Most of the vines of the oldest vineyards were planted in the first half of the last century. So at a time when mechanisation in the vineyard was not yet an issue. The vines do not stand there in rank and file, but are rather randomly arranged with their 70 centimeters high and branched gnarled branches. For this reason, all work on Gianfranco Fino's near-natural cultivated areas is carried out manually. Machines could hardly be used in the narrow and irregular lanes.

As an agronomist and oenologist, the ambitious owner of the estate produces two top-quality wines, Primitivo and Negroamaro, each of which expresses its unique terroir, the wines named "E flat" and "yo" - which attracted national and international attention and received the highest awards. Especially the yeast fermented with indigenous wild yeasts "E flat" it is thanks to Gianfranco Fino that the whole Manduria region became famous in Italy and even worldwide. In recent years, this exceptional wine has often led the wine lists of the renowned critics' guild. Gianfranco Fino has been named by the leading Italian wine guide of the Gambero Rosso"Winegrower of the year 2010" excellent.

"yo" is short for the Ionian Sea, where this Negroamaro from Salento thrives. For both cult objects carefully vinified in the cellar and limited in their production quantity, the grapes are harvested slightly overripe. The wines ferment in stainless steel tanks and then mature for nine or twelve months in barriques. They are dense and powerful, but also elegant, with fine structure and are characterized by freshness and drinking canimo. The 2013 vintage was the first year in which the "sea" as well as "E flat" a pure Primitivo, however from younger vineyards, but no less great. In homeopathic doses there will also be a red sweet wine, a speciality whose grapes may dry on the vine, and a Spumante Metodo Classico. You can be curious about both - but you have to be patient, because they will probably not be available for two or three years.

"Fino calls his Primitivo Es. According to Sigmund Freud, wine stands for the basic instinct, the instinctive joie de vivre and uninhibited enjoyment. A wonderful impression of what Puglia can be."Falstaff