Sampietrana. Salento Organic Verdeca

Salento IGT
Grapes: Verdeca

A conventional, organic wine; hand-picked, soft-pressed grapes fermented with selected yeasts in a temperature-controlled steel tank.  The result is a wine with a piercing freshness, a lovely citrus core holding apricot, flint and sea salt flavours.  A delicate, dry and elegant, very attractive wine.  13%

Cantina Sampietrana producer page

Verdeca is fast becoming the green-tinged darling of Puglia as their winemakers finally see the beauty spotted by the Greeks some time ago; in Greece, Verdeca is called Lagorthi and is in such demand that monovarietal wines are thin on the ground.  Although this is also the case in Puglia, it is for completely different reasons; the variety was seen as a blending workhorse.

Sampietrana’s Verdeca is cultivated by a single farmer who specialises in organic production, no easy task, when in 2023 rain caused no end of problems; his final production was a fraction of a normal vintage.  The quality however is excellent, and we acted fast to make sure we got (more than) our share.