Galatina DOC

Seven communes in the heart of the Salento peninsula, in the province of Lecce: Galatina, Cutrofiano, Aradeo, Neviano, Seclì, Sogliano Cavour and Collepasso. It is Negroamaro country, with one significant oddity — the white wine of the denomination is Chardonnay.

The Terroir The registered file describes soils that are moderately to very deep, of moderate fertility, of clay-loam texture and dark red colour, with intense biological activity. It then explains why the depth matters: viticulture is practised on deep soil to compensate for the scarcity of water and the summer aridity. The climate is Mediterranean, with strong temperature swings, hot summers and mild winters. That dark red earth is the terra rossa of the Salento — iron-rich clay sitting on limestone, and the reason vines survive a rainless July.

The History The file records commercial exchange going back to the 1600s, with wine leaving the local ports for the markets of London, Berlin, St Petersburg and Barcelona. The whole territory, it says, preserves finds from that era documenting the excellent quality of the wines, and scientific records of production go back to the Statistica del Regno di Napoli of 1811. That is a long and specific commercial memory for a zone now barely known outside Puglia.

Grape Varieties Negroamaro is the denomination, required at a minimum of 65 per cent in the red and the rosé. The white is Chardonnay, at a minimum of 85 per cent. Various other Salento varieties are permitted in the balance.

The Critical Take Naming Chardonnay as the white of a Salento DOC was a decision of the 1990s and it has aged badly, at a moment when Verdeca, Bianco d’Alessano and Minutolo are the reason anyone looks at Puglian white wine at all. The reds are the point here. Negroamaro from this inland stretch, grown on deep terra rossa well away from the coast, is firmer and more savoury than the softer, riper style the Salento is generally sold on — bitter cherry and tobacco rather than jam, with the salt-and-bitter finish the grape’s name promises.

Galatina and the Tarantate The town is the centre of tarantismo, the ritual in which women said to have been bitten by a spider were cured by days of frenzied dancing to the pizzica. The rite converged each June on Galatina’s chapel of San Paolo, and it was still being documented in the 1950s. The music outlived the rite and is now the sound of the whole peninsula.

At the Table Salentine cooking: orecchiette with cime di rapa, horse meat in tomato, pittule, broad-bean purée with chicory, and aged pecorino. Serve the Negroamaro at 16–17°C.

Benchmark Producers Cantina Fiorentino and the historic Valle dell’Asso, both at Galatina.