San Marzano Tramari Primitivo Rosé 2025
£11.25
The wine
A softly coloured rose with intense aromas of wild cherry and raspberry, combined with an attractive hint of aromatic Mediterranean maquis. Elegantly styled and slightly off-dry, with a refreshing finish.
Tramari is made by the saignee method: juice is bled off a Primitivo ferment after a few hours on the skins, taking colour and aroma but leaving the tannin behind. A touch of residual sugar is left in, which is deliberate and suits the wild cherry fruit. The name refers to the land between two seas, Salento sitting between the Adriatic and the Ionian.
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.
