BARSENTO | Casaboli | Primitivo | Gioia del Colle | Riserva | 2018
primitivo

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Today we are going to review a single varietal primitivo wine from the Puglia wine region in the south of Italy (right there in the heel) – Casaboli Primitivo Gioia del Colle Riserva 2018 by Cantine Barsento. For more than 40 years Azienda Vinicola Barsento has been working on enhancing the native vines and the terroir of Puglia. Primitivo (also known as Zinfandel in the USA) has been thought to be native to Puglia, but it actually hails from Croatia (Dalmatia), where it is called Tribidrag. In the last century it was noted that Zinfandel and Primitivo were very similar. The more researchers looked at them, the more similarities emerged, thus DNA analysis removed any doubt – the two varieties were genetically identical. More than that, further DNA analysis revealed that both varieties are identical to a croatian variety called Crljenak Kastelanski, which raised the question: which variety is the oldest and which name was the correct one. In 2011 an even older croatian variety, called Tribidrag, was found to be genetically identical, therefore the consensus was that this is the prime name. As it turns out the names Primitivo and Tribidrag are both derived from words meaning ‘early‘ in latin and croatian respectively, which reflects the yearly-ripening characteristic the grape variety. But enough theory for today – this particular wine has been aged for several months in big oak botti (large oak barrels, usually made of slavonian oak) in order to preserve as much as possible the purity of fruit. That said and without further ado, let’s take a look at the wine tasting results.
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

//Visual
colour: deep & opaque ruby
clarity: hazy garnet shades

//Olfactory
intensity: powerful & sweet
fruit profile: black fruits
__black fruits: black cherry | black plum | black mulberry | blackberry
fruit character: overripe & dried

//Flavor
non fruit: spice | oak | sweet | other
__spice: black pepper | nutmeg | tonka seeds | anise
__oak: liquorice | sweet tobacco | cinnamon | roasted oakwood
__sweet: chocolate | dried black cherry | dried black plum | blackberry jam | blackcurrant jam | black mulberry jam
__other: leather | mint
primary layer: fruit

//Palate
sweetness: dry
acidity: high
alcohol: high
tannin: high
__grip: fine
balance: good
__dominant: acidity
body: round & supple | full body

//Taste
fruit profile: black fruits
fruit character: overripe & dried
non fruit: sweet & spice
finish: medium+
aftertaste: velvety-crisp

//Scoring
BARSENTO | Casaboli | Primitivo | Gioia del Colle | Riserva | 2018
variety: primitivo
country: Italy
region: Puglia
rating: 92.9

//Conclusion
maturity: developing | age for 3 or 4 years
verdict: fine | highly recommended
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This is definitely a fine wine of Italy and, with a total of 92.9 points scored, this wine is right there, among the best wines we’ve rated so far. Check our complete database on the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines that we have tasted and reviewed or go to the about us page and find out more about our exquisite rating system.

Verdict: this is a very fine primitivo wine: supple, rich and extremely appealing – a wine that is still developing, thus one that can resist another 3 or 4 more years of bottle ageing. It tastes crisp, ripe and slightly sweet, with a very expressive, fruit-forward profile. This is a very well structured, round and lean wine, with elevated acidity, fine-grained tannins and a touch of alcoholic warmth on the mouthfeel. All these elements form a velvety palate, thus leading to a pleasantly crisp finale – a real crowd-pleaser of a wine. On the nose the wine delivers overripe black fruits and fruit jam in the foreground, followed by very nuanced liquorice-leathery hints in the background, with a layer of spice in between. What this wine lacks today is maybe just a bit of finesse and elegance on the palate, that said, our recommendation would be to drink it sooner rather than later and enjoy it in its full flamboyance and expressiveness. Saluti!

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