Masserie Pizari Salento Rosso Negroamaro 2020

The 2020 Masserie Pizari Salento Rosso Negroamaro sports a deep purple color and cuts a fine figure from the moment it is poured. Plush, opulent, and easy to drink, Masserie Pizari’s 2020 Negroamaro comes across as the quintessential southern Italian red wine – we mean that in the best possible way. The 2020 Masserie Pizari Negroamaro offers an appealing invitation with a delightful aroma, round black fruit flavors, and an open knit personality. Savory scents of dark cherries, chocolate, and plums grace the nose. In the mouth, the wine spreads its warmth, too, with plenty of pure fruit, cacao, and subtle herbal tones. Graced with low acidity and soft tannins, the 2020 Masserie Pizari Negroamaro finishes gracefully, all the while preserving its bold flavors and masking its 14%+ alcohol level. Enjoy the 2020 Masserie Pizari Negroamaro now and often at cool room temperature (58°-60° F) after a few minutes of aeration. Anticipated maturity: 2022-2025. Enjoy!

The 2020 Masserie Pizari makes a strong case for Negroamaro, one of southern Italy’s most emblematic grape varieties. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that it provides the ideal companion to southern Italian culinary classics. Antipasti, hard cheeses, and smoked meats provide tried and true starters to pair with this wine. So, let’s put out the finest pepperoni, prosciutto, salami, and soppressata and place them in the company of authentic Italian Provolone, Parmesan, and other hard regional Italian cheeses to create a match made in heaven. Pasta Bolognese; grilled hot Italian sausage with onions and peppers; braciole (thin slices of beef, chicken or pork that are breaded, rolled and stuffed with cheese and herbal savory); Eggplant Parmigiana; and of course pizza, calzones, and Stromboli also make wonderful companions to Masserie Pizari’s 2020 Negroamaro. Vegetable Stromboli constitutes one of our favorite accompaniments. Pasta Arrabiata and other tomato sauce based dishes that call for red pepper flakes won’t scare away Masserie Pizari’s 2020 Negroamaro, either. Yet, given this wine’s extroverted personality, it also holds its own in the company of fine cuts of meat and savory sauces while it easily slips down the thirsty throat. Buon Appetito!

The wonderful full-flavored cheeses of Italy provide ideal accompaniments to the wines of Southern Italy, including Masserie Pizari’s very cheese friendly 2020 Negroamaro. Parmesan, Pecorino, Provolone, and Sicilian Caciocavallo all offer wonderful accompaniments to this month’s Negroamaro. However, why stop with Italian cheeses? Masserie Pizari’s Negroamaro makes a fine companion to cheeses from around the world. To enjoy the world’s finest cheeses delivered directly to your door, join us at www.cheesemonthclub.com.

Masserie Pizari is located in southern Salento, on the very “heel” of Italy, between Gallipoli and Leuca in ancient Puglia, an area where two of Italy’s oldest vines, Negroamaro and Primitivo, have been cultivated for centuries. Brothers Giordano and Francesco Pizari, supported by renowned oenologist Andrea Boaretti, devote themselves to fashioning beautiful red wines from the region’s two premier varietals. Pizari’s vines are especially well-tended, some of which are in excess of 60 years of age. Grown just a few kilometers from the sea in clay soils rich in potassium, Masserie Pizari’s wines exhibit considerable strength as well as a quiet elegance that is rare among the region’s producers. Moreover, yields are low, fermentation takes place under temperature control, and only the best clusters are used to make the estate’s Salento Rosso Negroamaro (this month’s feature), Salento Rosato Negroamaro, and Salento Rosso Primitivo. The result is opulent, crowd-pleasing wines which offer plenty of drinking pleasure, yet wear their alcohol and tannins well.

Negroamaro is a dark skinned grape variety indigenous to Southern Italy’s Apulia (aka Puglia), where it thrives in the hot, dry Mediterranean climate of Italy’s boot and almost nowhere else. It produces especially fine wine in Salento, a sub-peninsula at the very heel of the Italian Peninsula. Negroamaro produces an opulent, deeply colored red wine that offers plenty of dark fruit flavors and pleasant herbal tones. And, like its Apulian soulmate Primitivo, Negroamaro rarely yields less than 14% alcohol by volume, which easily hides behind its plush fruit and voluptuous texture.