Author: Marco Simoni

With the braying of donkeys, the sound of their hooves striking the dusty, red, clay-rich soil along the paths winding through the marvelous landscape of Puglia: the vast expanses of ancient olive groves and vineyards, spiky cacti, characteristic stone trulli with their conical roofs, the crystalline waves crashing against rocky cliffs, and so many other treasures that define this gem of Italy.The “Susumaniello,” an ancient black grape variety native to this land at the beginning of the Salento territory, bears in its name an analogy to the donkey. In fact, the name ‘susumaniello’ (ciucciariello) comes from the Puglian dialect, or…

As the French senator Victor Hugo once said, “The horizon is the line that underscores infinity,” and on the horizon of the infinite varietal ampelography of indigenous Italian vines, there is also the ‘Ruzzese,’ an ancient and extremely rare white grape variety from Liguria. On the high hills of the province of La Spezia, overlooking another horizon—the Ligurian Sea—this variety continues to live on, with only 1,500 vines remaining. Yes, only 1,500 vines! These young vines symbolize the present and future of this centuries-old grape variety. The Ruzzese, deriving from the dialectal term ‘Ruzzese,’ ‘Racese,’ or ‘Razzese,’ has an ancient…