San Marzano Susco Susumaniello 2021
£16.25
The wine
An intriguing Susumaniello, with floral notes, red berried fruit and spicy balsamic nuances interwoven through a finely textured and elegant palate. A near-forgotten Puglian variety, and worth seeking out.
Susumaniello had almost disappeared. The name comes from the local word for a little donkey, because young vines carry so heavy a crop, though production collapses sharply as they age, which is exactly why growers abandoned it. A handful of producers have brought it back over the past two decades, and it gives a red of unusual freshness and fine tannin for the region.
The producer
San Marzano
View all San Marzano winesIn 1962 nineteen growers in the village of San Marzano pooled their vineyards and founded a cooperative. More than sixty years later it draws on over 1,200 growers across Salento and the Manduria hills, and has become one of the most professional and forward-thinking houses in southern Italy.
The real asset is the old vines. Much of Puglia is still planted to alberello, the free-standing bush training the Greeks brought to the region, in which each vine stands alone without wires or posts. It cannot be machine harvested and it crops very little, but the fruit it gives is concentrated in a way trellised vines rarely match. Some of the plots behind Sessantanni and Anniversario 62 are well past sixty years old, and the names say exactly that.
The range is built on the three native reds of the heel of Italy: Primitivo, genetically identical to Zinfandel; Negroamaro, whose name means roughly black and bitter; and the near-forgotten Susumaniello. Passion and competence are the stated bywords, and the run of awards suggests they are more than a slogan.
