» Negroamaro
Noble Salento grape variety say the texts which speak of the Negroamaro grape variety, for which technical and scientific information is available starting from the 1870s.
The documents of the time describe “a black grape variety of medium-sized bunches, with plum-shaped or olive-shaped grapes”. It produced an excellent black wine with “an excess of colouring agent; alcoholic, flavoursome and endowed with a special aroma”.
Thus we learn that the variety in question is the same thing that in Barletta they call Purcinara and that on Mount Barbaro (once seat of the famous Falerno wine decanted by Orazio) beyond Pozzuoli, in the province of Naples, they call Olivella.
Whereas in the provinces of Naples and Bari the variety in question is confused with the other varieties in the vineyards, in the province of Lecce it represents the ultimate vine, providing – so to speak – a standard variety for wine production.
Negroamaro has bunches of medium dimensions, with oblong grapes, tannic and abundant in sugary, colouring parts, and on its own it represents a robust, dry wine, for blending and coupage.
Its black fruit begins to ripen around 20th September. Over 70 plant stocks are known, representing the different biotypes of Negroamaro found in various locations in the province of Lecce. Recent studies (Prof. Di Stefano, Institute of Experimental Oenology of Asti) attribute great qualities as an antioxidant to this variety and mark it out as rich in antiallergic and antimutagenic substances, as well as having cardiotonic properties, due to the presence of resveratrol.
As for the name Negroamaro, it would appear to be derived from its unusual, intensely black colour, from the Latin niger and the Greek mavros, an example of the bilingualism common among the people of Salento – even today there are linguistic islands where an ancient Griko dialect is spoken – meaning black twice, in other words extremely black.
