Day 2 in Lecce - Wine Tasting!

On our second day in Lecce, our hotel had arranged for a driver to take us to two local wineries for some wine tasting. We went for a quick walk in the morning and had a small, continental breakfast and were picked up by Fabio, our driver at 11 am. Fabio did not really speak English at all, which made it a bit challenging. But we worked it out. The first winery we went to was a 25 minute drive from our hotel and it is called "Masseria Liveli."

Masseria Liveli

Masseria LiVeli is a beautiful historic winery in the Salento region of Puglia. Though the original winery was built hundreds of years ago, it was purchased and restored by the Falvo family from Tuscany about 25 years ago. The renovation of the main winery building and wine cellar is absolutely gorgeous:







We got a tour of the winery by Stefania, a native of the Lecce region. There were two other couples with us on the tour -- one couple from Miami and the other from London. After the tour we sat in the tasting room as Stefania gave us generous pours of each of their wines. We began with a Rose and then moved on to a Verdeca. Verdeca is a grape that is native to the region and, to us, it tasted like a cross between Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling. It was excellent. From there we moved on to the reds. This winery is completely dedicated to promoting the native wines of Puglia. Their 'Askos' project wines are all part of this effort, which is described as follows: 

ASKOS IS THE NAME OF OUR PROJECT DEDICATED TO THE RESEARCH, SELECTION AND ENHANCEMENT OF THE HERITAGE OF NATIVE APULIAN VINES IN DANGER OF EXTINCTION.THE WINES ARE PRODUCED EXCLUSIVELY WITH GRAPES FROM AREAS WITH A PARTICULAR VOCATION IN WHICH THE VINE IS RAISED ACCORDING TO THE CANONS OF AN ANCIENT MEMORY. THE SYMBOL IS AN ASKOS, A GREEK “DECANTER” FROM THE 1ST CENTURY BC




We started with the Malvasia Nera, which was on the lighter side of the reds we had sampled from the region -- but it was balanced, complex and smooth. Next was a wine we had never heard of called "Susumaniello." This was my favorite of the reds we tried -- for me it was similar to a Rhone Blend in that it was deep dark red in color and had a velvety mouth feel. Next it was a Primitivo, which is the most well known wine of this region and is a cousin of Zinfandel. The Primitivo was excellent, but it was a bit more tannic and didn't have the same smoothness and velvet that the Susumaniello had.

The last red wine we had was an absolute beast! It was called Pezza Morgana and the grape varietal is NegroAmaro. This varietal ended up being one of our favorites over the next few days. The translation, as I understand it, is Black and Spicy.


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