Quota 29 Primitivo IGT Salento
Wine: Quota 29 Primitivo IGT Salento.
Grape: Primitivo
Region: Puglia, South Italy
Vintage: 2004
Price: $8.99
In the glass: Quota 29 wine is a deep, brooding blackish-red color with a dense, opaque core going out into a deep crimson rim definition with high viscosity.
On the nose: Imagine a freshly baked warm cherry pie straight out of the oven and that is the first thing that comes to mind with this wine. It expands and shows deep, crushed mixed black fruit with berries, plums and hints of licorice root and herbs, with underlying earthiness in the minerality.
On the palate: It is a rich and full-bodied wine with loads of concentrated blackberry and cherry fruit at first, then a soft, supple but very extracted black plum base with layers of dark chocolate, spice cake, blueberry pie and again that licorice component. The midpalate is solid and full of verve in the tannins that, while firm, are not biting or obtrusive. The delicious finish is lingering and has touches of sweet black fruit to the end.
Odds and ends: Quota 29 is another killer value wine from the very south of Italy, down in the “heel” of the country. This is purportedly the ancient and original home of what was transplanted in California and became the zinfandel grape variety. Quota 29 is big, brawny, and full of fruit and alcohol as you would expect, but also has some age on it. The rule for zinfandel and primitivo wines is that they should be consumed within four to five years, but this wine, at 6 years of age, seems like it is just coming into a peak period of drinkability. And at this price, it is a top notch pick with great looking packaging. I’d say drink up before the end of 2013, and try it with a pepper steak or the like.
Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or e-mail him at gil@winevegas.com.
