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2005 Primitivo di Puglia Wine Showdown Transcript

Written By: ClassicWines.com Team on Monday, August 27, 2007

Brian Freedman: Welcome to the Weekly Wine Showdown, brought to you by Classicwines.com. I am Brian Freedman, and today we are going to be tasting two wines that you are probably a whole lot more familiar with than you realize.

You see, everyone knows Red Zinfandel. Don't get me started on the White stuff; but Red Zinfandel from California, very, very popular these days, great this time of the year with barbeque. There is absolutely nothing better with a nice, sweet, smoky, glazed and barbequed sparerib, but today we are tasting Primitivo di Puglia.

Both of these wines are made from the Primitivo grape. Puglia is "the heel" of the boot, but actually it extends a little bit above the heel but it's on the Adriatic Coast in Italy, and both of these are from 2005. Price range, both between $15 and 20$, so not cheap wines necessarily, but it's not going to break the bank either. But let's see what we here.

So, this first one, this is the -- and pardon the pronunciation here, the Torre Dei Gesuiti -- I speak French, not Italian, it doesn't help me on this episode. So, Zinfandel in California can get really high in alcohol. But these are both pretty moderate; this one is 13%, this one here is 13.5%. So, really I am not expecting it to come off that hot when you taste these. That's one of the problems; when you taste the wine with too much alcohol, it sometimes burns going down - good with Bourbon, not so much with grape juice.

So now, this is interesting. Usually with Primitivo, with Zinfandel, you are going to get dark fruit, dark berries - this one doesn't quite like that. I am getting a lot of crushed red berry fruit, almost something like a ripe raspberry - unexpected. Well; boy, that's pretty out of balance actually. There is too much acid there. It's just completely throwing the whole thing out of whack, and my salivary glands are going crazy. It might be helped obviously if we had some food with it, because protein and all the fat in that will help to soften out those edges. But really not a big fan of this; I think it's simple, I think it's thin. You know what, for the money, we can do a lot better.

Now, wine number two today is the Feudi Di San Marzano 2005 Primitivo from Puglia. This one is noticeably darker on the color. I am getting emotional over it. This one smells a whole lot more like what I was expecting; it's rich, there is something almost like a blueberry or a blackberry - there is almost something like chocolate or coffee. This is really getting me a whole lot of interesting stuff. That is a mouthful. The fruit there is very round, it's very ripe.

This one to me is the kind of wine that you could love with a barbeque. You could have it on your own, while you are watching re-runs of "Dawson's Creek". Does anybody watch that anymore? Who knows? But this is a great wine; it will get you through the trauma of watching that. Truth be told, there is no question today which one wins. The winner of this week's Showdown, the Feudi Di San Marzano Primitivo Puglia 2005 without a doubt.

For classicwines.com and the Weekly Wine Showdown, I am Brian Freedman. And remember, no matter what you're drinking, no matter what you've paid for it, don't get bent out of shape because it's only grape juice. Cheers!

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Wines Featured In 2005 Primitivo di Puglia Wine Showdown Transcript

Feudi Di San Marzano 2005 Primitivo
Region: Europe > Italy > Puglia

  

S. Orsola 2003 Nebbiolo
Region: Barbaresco

  

Torre Dei Gesuiti 2005
Region: Puglia Igt

  

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