Borgo dei Trulli Salice Salentino DOP

Description

Borgo dei Trulli Salice Salentino is a red wine made from grapes sourced from low-yielding vineyards in the Province of Lecce, in southern Puglia. It is a blend of 90% Negraomaro and 10% Malvasia Nera. It is bottled as a Salice Salentino DOP or Denominazione di Origine Protteta.

Masseria Borgo dei Trulli, to give it its full name, is a new wine venture made by Orion Wines, a company created to bring together interesting wines from small growers and wineries from all over Italy. The company was created by Luca Pomaro and winemaker Alessandro Michelon with the premise of producing wines from indigenous grapes that express the typicity of the particular region where they are grown. The Masseria Borgo dei Trulli estate is located in the heart of Salento and is owned and managed by Orion wines with Alessandro Michelon as head winemaker. Around 80% of wine produced at the estate is red wine produced from Negroamaro and Primitivo with some white wine, including Vermentino.

The Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera grapes for the Borgo dei Trulli Salice Salentino DOP come from low-yielding vines with an average age of 15 to 20 years old. The harvest is in late September. After harvest the grapes are destemmed, but not crushed, to reduce damage to the skins and optimising colour extraction.  The two grape varieties are fermented together in stainless steel vats with frequent remontage (pumping over) and delestage (a “rack-and-return” process to aerate the wine). These methods help to achieve soft extraction of aromas and gentle tannins. The wine is then allowed to go through malolactic fermentation in oak barrels. 80% of the wine is then left to rest in stainless steel whilst 20% is aged in second and third fill 500L oak tonneaux barrels for 8 months. Finally the wines are all blended and the wine is bottled.

Masseria Borgo dei Trulli is named after the traditional Apulian dry stone huts with a conical roof. These are known as a “trullo” or “trulli” in the plural and feature in the brand logo.