I couldn’t start this short article in any other way. We were in Bari last week, and my travel companions went to visit Fatalone Winery, in Gioia del Colle.
Fearing my inevitable “sideways revenge,” my friends thought it wise to return home with a bottle of Fatalone Primitivo Riserva 2006. Not so much for me, but rather for my son Federico.
As you know, I love to share wine, and that bottle was simply itching to be opened.
The opportunity came yesterday, sitting at the table of my friends at Conciabocca in Testaccio.
I picked up my son from school and carefully disguised the Primitivo Riserva 2006 with aluminum foil. Once poured into the glasses—although I was not sitting with professionals—the inevitable question came: what do we have in the glass? Region… to begin with?
They ranged from north to south, but mostly north. Yet soon we all became captivated by what was in the glass.
A color that clearly revealed a few years on its shoulders. An aroma that seemed to change every ten minutes, as if the wine wanted to win you over again each time. The scents were all perfectly measured, evidence of great balance: notes of ripe fruit, then hints of dried fruit, plum, and finally a damp forest floor.
But what truly won us over was its unexpected energy. A living wine, very much alive, with a freshness that seemed ready to burst from the glass even after 14 years spent in the bottle.
We had other wines on the table, but—sorry for them—they disappeared in comparison. I deliberately skipped the usual introduction about the winery, the kind that normally opens a piece like this. In this case, the wine speaks for itself. And believe me, it speaks loudly.
Fatalone Primitivo Riserva 2006 deserved this article—written in one breath and, without doubt, on a wave of enthusiasm.
