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“standfirst”>Italy’s ‘deep south’ has buckets of sunshine and winemaking talent. If only it could produce some credible brands this corner of the Old World could become the new New World, says Tom Bruce-Gardyne
One very simple way to track the evolution of the UK wine market over the last few decades is in degrees of alcohol. Back in the Eighties a typical red wine sold here would be 12% abv and probably labelled Chianti or Bordeaux. Today’s equivalent is pushing 14% abv and likely to be called Shiraz or Malbec. Of course few consumers actively buy wine by picking up a bottle and comparing its strength to the next, but it is indicative of changing tastes.
Given a bottle full of ripe fruit and southern warmth, wine drinkers in sun-starved Britain have been easily seduced. As the big Bordeaux négociants now concede, these wines have become the reference point for the mass market in the UK. While this presents the Bordelais with a dilemma that perhaps only global warming can resolve, it could be the making of southern Italy.
With levels of sunshine and heat to match Australia and California, Italy’s “deep south” has no problem providing the jammy, fruit-driven wines currently in fashion.
Recognising that Sicily is experiencing something of a renaissance, Mezzacorona, historically a Northern Italian producer, decided to create a whole new range of warmclimate wines, Feudo Arancio. Its 27-year-old Sicilian winemaker Calogero Statella said, “the intense light and heat, a Mediterranean climate and fertile grounds contribute to well ripened mature grapes, powerful fragrances and rich aromas to produce fruit driven wines that are so in vogue at the moment.”
There is also no shortage of volume in Sicily: “Don’t forget that Puglia and Sicily produce a third of all Italian wine – that’s more than Australia,” says Massimo Marcja, Antinori’s marketing director. “The only thing missing is there’s no Penfolds or Hardys.”
Tale of two Sicilies
In the absence of big brands, the region’s initial attraction for the major UK buyers was as a source of cheap generic wine. In the early Nineties a tide of own-label Sicilian red and white at £2.99 began to flood onto the supermarket shelves. “It is what opened the region up,” says Peter Bisley, business development director for Italy at importers PLB. “The next stop was the arrival of flying winemakers going in to create wines for the UK. Suddenly you had all these wonderful, different varietals made in the modern style which all the buyers got very excited about and a lot of wines were put on lists. Not all have lasted, though and lists have depleted downwards.”
On the whole, Sicily has managed to escape the kind of generic trap that Eastern European wines remain stuck in. But for David Gleave, MD of the Italian specialist Liberty Wines, the island suffers from the same problem that affects much of the old world – that of being “straight-jacketed by price-point.” According to Gleave, “There are quite clear slots where Sicilian wines are put, whether it’s at the basic level, at the varietal level of Inzolia or Nero d’Avola, or a step up to a ‘reserve’ wine. In the new world the price brackets are more fluid and flexible.”
At PLB, the company’s Sicilian agency is Firriato which is listed in Tesco and Marks & Spencer. At present PLB has nothing from Puglia and although the company is “always on the look out”, Bisley feels things haven’t really moved on in the last five years. “Yes, there is some very good quality and value down there, but I don’t think [the producers] have taken the next step. I get the impression they’ve been treading water for a while, where at one stage they were charging ahead.”
In the meantime PLB has decided to focus more on its Italian Icons – an umbrella brand covering the key generic wines like Soave and Chianti that are all from further north. By contrast, Waverley TBS has taken a wholly varietal approach with its pan-Italian brand, Trulli, which was launched in 1995. Starting with a Chardonnay and Primitivo from Puglia in a joint venture with Cantele, the range has expanded northwards and now includes the current best-seller, Pinot Grigio. Commercial director, Pierpaolo Petrassi, reckons Puglia and Sicily are developing at more or less the same rate.
As proof he cites the fact that the big northern producers like GIV and Zonin have been buying into both regions equally. “The one thing Puglia lacks is a Planeta,” he says of the brand named after Diego Planeta, head of the giant Sicilian producer, Settesoli. In Petrassi’s words, Planeta “has been a flagship for the island in terms of branding and forging ahead with something contemporary.”
Settesoli and Planeta are imported by Enotria, and Segio di Lucca, director of trading, believes Sicily will take off first. “Puglia was the talk of everyone five or six years ago, but in terms of infrastructure of growers and wineries I don’t think it’s as good as Sicily,” he says. If so, then much of the credit lies with Diego Planeta who was one of the first to plant better varieties and reward growers on the basis of quality and not just volume. Recent plantings include the aromatic white grape from Campania, Fiano, which was launched as a wine in 2002, and Viognier which will appear on the shelf later this year.
There have been upsets for Sicily along the way, notably with D’Istinto. This was the brand created by BRL Hardy in a joint venture with Calatrassi in 1995. It was principally invented to open up distribution channels in mainland Europe, through which Hardys could pump gallons of its Australian wines. In the UK it quickly gained mass distribution, but three years on Hardy pulled out and the brand almost disappeared off the shelves. It seems a large amount was sold to Tesco to dispose of at £2.99, which did nothing to endear D’Istinto to the rest of the trade. Now, with importers Edward Cavendish and with improved quality and spruced-up packaging, brand manager Lisa Walton is confident D’Istinto will soon be widely available again. It still enjoys national distribution in the off-trade through Matthew Clark.
David Gleave is unsure whether the D’Istinto story has put others off, but says, “People have always been wary of these giant tie-ups. When you go into a place and say ‘Because we’ve done so well in the rest of the world, we’re going to be able to do well in Sicily’ – that’s not necessarily the case.” Sergio di Lucca of Enotria, agent for Planeta and Settesoli, adds, “It’s not like in Australia where you can predict and maintain a certain price for a number of years. In Italy the price of grapes and wine fluctuates quite a lot.” In other words, it is hard to build brands. And there are clearly some cultural issues which may make it easier for the northern Italians who followed in the wake of the flying winemakers from Australia. But if the Italians have more chance of success, Gleave reckons it will be due to “going about it modestly and with probably more limited ambitions than Hardys”.
The big red hope for Sicily is the island’s indigenous grape, Nero d’Avola, “But it’s not going to be a big bang,” says Gleave. “I think slowly, slowly it will penetrate the consciousness of, if not the mass market, then certainly an expanding niche market.” De Lucca agrees that Nero d’Avola will take time: “The quality and pricing is still very varied, but it is getting better.”
International wines
The same is true of Sicily’s indigenous white varietals like Inzolia and Grillo. But they all face the problem of recognition on the shelves. To overcome this the native grapes are often blended with something more mainstream to produce Nero d’Avola/Syrah or Cataratto/ Chardonnay, for example. From a winemaking perspective this is obviously frustrating. A wellmade Nero d’Avola can happily stand on its own two feet, but in terms of marketing it probably still needs the support of a wellknown grape. Peter Bisley accepts this, but wonders whether consumers even notice the Sicilian varietal as they reach for “something- Chardonnay” on the shelf.
Of the international varietals from Sicily, the grape creating the greatest buzz is Syrah, of which there is now over 3,500 hectares planted. For Petrassi the island “produces a style true to the grape, that is distinct from the Rhône or Australia.” The main foreign varietal from Puglia available in the UK, is probably Chardonnay. For the reds, some sell the native Primitivo as Zinfandel, others like Stefano Girelli of Casa Girelli insist on the local name. “We have to create our own identity,” he says.
Brand potential
Casa Girelli from Trentino has been in Puglia since the late Nineties. The company sources grapes from over 150 growers and makes the wine by arrangement with a big local winery. In Sicily, Stefano is excited about the new DOC of Cerrasuolo which blends Nero d’Avola and Frapatto, and also the Sicilian white grape, Grillo.
Meanwhile, Fratelli Martini from Piedmont, which owns the top-selling Canti brand, has been enjoying success with its 35° Parallelo range from Sicily and Puglia. Using latitude as the brand name underlines the idea that the two regions are Italy’s answer to the new world. They are the same distance from the equator as Australia and share a similar climate. The company’s export director, Tino Vergano, believes wines like Nero d’Avola and Puglia’s Salice Salentino “have a real potential for success as affordable full-bodied wines.” This is provided grape prices remain stable.
The new emerging wine regions of Italy are not just confined to Puglia and Sicily. The question is how much has activity in the “deep south” stimulated activity elsewhere? One place that could perhaps learn from Sicily is Sardinia. It has a clutch of interesting native grapes that are only grown here and, being an island, it has a truer sense of identity than regions on the mainland. But it seems the similarities stop there. “I just don’t think they produce enough wine,” says David Gleave. “At the top end they produce some stunning wines. But in the volume mass market, they just don’t come close to Sicily.”
According to Sergio di Lucca, Sardinia suffers from rural depopulation with the young abandoning the land for jobs in the city. On a modest scale, there are success stories, however. Enotria has built a good base in the on-trade for the wines of Santardi, one of the best-run co-operatives on the island.
Niche quality
Back on the mainland, Puglia’s neighbours are showing sporadic signs of life. But again volumes will never be huge, and most accept that Calabria, Basilicata and Campania should concentrate on quality. With smaller vineyards and lower yields, Peter Bisley says they can’t really follow Puglia, even if they had the will-power. Of the three, Campania does best at Liberty with wines like Fallanghino, Aglianico and Fiano, but all at the niche price of £7.99 and above.
But moving up the Adriatic coast it is potentially a very different story. Being the country’s fifth biggest DOC, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, easily has the volume to succeed. The issue is whether it can break free from its cheap and cheerful house wine image. “I think it will be very interesting to see what happens to Montepulciano over the years,” says Bisley. “As a wine style I think it has a lot to offer.” For Gleave it is a question of “taming those chunky tannins” and reorganising the vineyards. Vines are often still widely spaced and wire-trained in a way to maximise yields.
Hidden potential
Enotria helped pioneer the wine in the UK when they persuaded Umani Ronchi to produce a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo in the late Seventies. Umani Ronchi is based in the neighbouring region of Le Marche, and the company knows all about Montepulciano as a grape from the years of producing Rosso Conero DOC. Its main focus, however, is on Verdicchio – “one of Italy’s most interesting white grape varieties,” says Gleave. “Umani Ronchi does a great job, but you need other big producers and good co-ops doing what some of the co-ops in the Veneto are doing. Namely, making very decent, everyday, entry-level wines. And that could really kick-start Verdicchio.”
But perhaps the region already has a great role model of its own in the Moncaro co-op which won Best Italian White for its Verdicchio at the latest IWSC awards. The man in charge, Stefano Tombesi believes the Marche will take off in time. “But I think it’s something you can’t force. The critical point is to know the region. It is similar to Tuscany, but not so crowded. The potential they have is really very good.”