2024 Puglia Pop Riccio

Puglia POP wines

Puglia POP is a household name in Puglia and in the wine world and is shaking things up in a region where a lot of volume is produced and still (too) often at very questionable quality.

Companies such as Rivera and Gianfranco Fino are the ones who have given the starting signal to shift the focus mainly to quality and at Puglia POP they go one step further and have completely overhauled not only the wine production, but also the bottle.

The Salento DOC area (Primitivo di Manduria and Susumaniello) is the most suitable area for the red Puglia POP varieties thanks to the hot temperatures we have in summer (up to 45 °C) and the proximity to the sea which ensures that in the evening there is a serious cooling down. The Verdeca and Negroamaro vineyards are located in the Valle d'Itria area, one of the few hilly areas in all of Puglia, with nice temperature fluctuations during the day and night and that gives a nice acidity and great aromas to the wines.

About the Puglia POP winery and its wines

• Puglia POP is a completely new project where wines are made of only the highest quality and the bottles are very innovative and beautiful to look at.

• The wine comes from old vines with very low yields of only 1 to 1.5 kg per vine. So a maximum of only 1 bottle of wine comes from a bush!]

• The vines are grown using the Albarello method. The vines are not supported by poles or iron wire, so the vines form a low shrub that resembles a small tree (Alberello means 'young tree' in Italian). It is very expensive to grow grapes this way, because far fewer vines can be planted per hectare and machines cannot be used. This ultimately gives very low yields, but the advantage is that the grapes are of very high quality

• The harvest of all 4 Puglia POP wines takes place at the beginning of September and is carried out completely manually. At Puglia POP everything takes a very long time and this ensures, among other things, the high quality. The fermentation is always very long and in all cases lees containing the natural yeasts remain present. After this, the wine is transferred to amphorae made of clay where it is allowed to mature for many months and the red wines are then aged for another 6 months in French and American oak barriques. All wines are also bottle-aged for a number of months to six months before the wine becomes available.

• Ultimately, the wine is bottled in its highly innovative bottle, which insulates the wine 45% better against temperature changes and protects it 100% better against light than a normal wine bottle. This keeps the wine fresh for longer and allows you to drink the wine as the winemaker intended, without unpleasant external influences. The bottle is also 100% recyclable and contributes to sustainable projects in Puglia