We’ve long admired the fluid and elegant expressions of Camilla Chauvenet-Rossi’s @massimago wines. Her light yet direct touch with Venetian wines of amplitude like Ripasso and Amarone will stop you in your tracks and turn your head. As a pioneer of organic viticulture in the north, it comes as no surprise that her collaboration with Valentino Ciarla at her family’s organic farm down in Puglia @masseria.cuturi would result in vibrant Mandurian primitivo. These wines follow the same tensile and precise lines as her Massimago wines. These Pugliese wines are not the light, fleet-footed chillable reds so currently in vogue. They are southern Italian: bigger-bodied more tannic reds that tell the story of a place ruled by sun, wind, and iron rich soils held up by limestone. These are wines of a history, where in the late 1800s a certain Countess Sabini brought as her dowry “barbatelle” cuttings of Primitivo to her new home when she married Don Tomasso. (Yes, back in the 1800s, wine was in the domain of women, an extension of the kitchen). A marriage of people, plant, and place. Flash forward so many years, and these wines shape a narrative of terroir as culture. They are a conversation that poses an age-old question: how can a simple bottle lead us so clearly back to last year’s sun on the vines? @masseria.cuturi’s Tuma is the perfect example. It opens in the glass with a memory of black fruits and licorice. There is wild cherry, prune, strawberry, rosemary, cocoa and pepper. A wine meant for roasted meat, and roasted vegetables. Smoke and char. Spice. #masseriacuturi #artisanalcellars #primitivodimanduria #puglia #italianwine #redwine #organicviticulture