Matera DOC

A provincial denomination covering the whole of the Matera province in eastern Basilicata, from the middle hills down to the Ionian coast. It is the counterweight to Aglianico del Vulture on the other side of the region, and it works with an entirely different set of grapes.

The Terroir The registered file places the zone in the west south-west part of the Basilicata region — the province of Matera in its entirety — across a territory of middle hills and a coastal strip. Vineyard exposure is predominantly south to south-east, and the file credits that aspect together with the cultivation techniques for producing healthy fruit with excellent ripening and full varietal expression. The ground is largely calcareous clay, the same limestone that the Sassi of Matera are carved into.

Grape Varieties Unusually broad for a southern denomination. Among the reds, Primitivo — this is the western edge of its range, continuous with Puglia across the border — alongside Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Among the whites, Greco and Malvasia. The denomination also covers a spumante and a passito.

The Critical Take Matera has become internationally famous as a city and has almost no wine reputation at all, which is an odd combination. The DOC was created in 2005, late, and covers a great deal of ground that had previously sold fruit in bulk toward Puglia. Primitivo here is generally fresher and less alcoholic than the Manduria style — the altitude of the middle hills does that — and the Greco is the quiet surprise, saline and firm. Neither has found a market, and prices reflect it.

Two Basilicatas The region divides cleanly and the division explains this denomination. To the west, Monte Vulture is an extinct volcano whose ash slopes grow Aglianico and produce Basilicata’s only wine of international reputation. To the east, the Matera province is limestone, lower, hotter and open to the Ionian, and it grows what Puglia grows — Primitivo above all. They have almost nothing in common beyond an administrative boundary, and treating Basilicata as one wine region obscures both.

The Sassi Matera’s cave dwellings are cut into the same calcareous rock the vineyards sit on, and the city was inhabited continuously from the Palaeolithic until the 1950s evacuation. The limestone that made those caves possible is what gives the zone its drainage.

At the Table Lucanian cooking, which is bread, legumes and pork: cialledda, orecchiette with cime di rapa, lamb, peperoni cruschi, and the caciocavallo podolico of the interior. Serve the Primitivo at 16–17°C and the Greco at 10–12°C.

Benchmark Producers Dragone, Battifarano, Cantine del Notaio (Vulture-based but working here too).