“Es Red” Primitivo Salento IGT 2019 · 0,75l in OWC

Gianfranco Fino | Puglia
Gianfranco Fino Viticoltore | Via Piave 12 | IT 74028 Sava

15133019 · 0,75 l · 198,67 €/l · Price (DE) incl. VAT, excl. Shippingavailable immediately
Limitation of 6 articles per customer

What comes after perfection? Gianfranco Fino has found an answer. Today, the winemaker cultivates fourteen plots of land around Manduria, each with its own character, each vinified separately. At the end of each vintage, he stands in the cellar between his barriques and tastes. He is not looking for the best – he looks for what touches him most deeply. "Che più ha emozionato", as he calls it. In 2019, there were five barrels that he couldn't let go of. These five barriques come from the estate's oldest vineyard: ninety-year-old Alberello vines, whose gnarled trunks rise barely knee-high from the red clay soil. Four hundred grams of grapes per vine – a blink of an eye yield for an explosion of concentration. After slight over-ripening on the vine, the grapes are harvested by hand, selected again in the cantina and then fermented on the skins for three to four weeks. The wine rests for twelve months in French oak before being bottled. A further forty-eight months of bottle ageing follow before a single bottle leaves the winery.

The result? Around fifteen hundred numbered bottles. And in a vintage in which the regular ES was already celebrated as the best red wine in Italy. A rich ruby red colour with violet reflections sparkles in the glass. The nose is a kaleidoscope: blackberry and cassis, then clove, black pepper and a hint of olive paste. On the palate, the wine fills every nook and cranny – dark berry fruit, coffee liqueur, liquorice – and unfolds in endless waves. The final covers the tongue like a carpet of spices and lingers. And lingers. And lingers ... Sigmund Freud would have defined ES as the unbridled urge. ES RED is its sublimation: the same power, but moulded into perfect form. SUPERIORE.DE

"Sparkling, rich ruby red colour. Intense and very appealing nose, presents itself with notes of blackberry, cassis and many spices, in the background of olive paste. Fills the palate full, dark blackberry fruit, cassis, some coffee liqueur, lingers for a long time with a carpet of spices." Falstaff

"A hint of leafy herbs and tobacco is a fragrant prelude to this silky red wine that exhibits beautiful balance. It shows a seamless integration of slightly juicy acidity and a core of dense, fine-grained tannins, offering an array of flavours of dried cherries and figs, strawberry jam, spiced orange peel and mint tea, as well as mineral earth and smoky accents. The lingering finish brings the ripe fruit back to life alongside a savoury blend of spices." Wine Spectator