Copertino Rosso Riserva Divoto is the flagship wine of the Apollonio winery, a Salento champion with great longevity. We participated in a small vertical.
Divoto, a blend of Negroamaro and Montepulciano, is a label that tells of the devotion of the winery
Apollonio
and the entire community of Monteroni di Lecce, the town where the winery is based, for St. Joseph of Cupertino, patron and protector of students and pilots.
The Apollonio company
Apollonio is registered with the Union of Italian Centenarian Enterprises and is one of the most representative wineries in the area. Among the first to bet on the unsuspected longevity and Enhancement of the Salento’s identity grape varieties.: Negroamaro in primis, then Primitivo, Malvasia nera, Susumaniello and Bianco d’Alessano.
From 1870 to the present day at the winery, the common thread has remained virtually unchanged; it is a mix of tradition, history and innovation. The 1.5 million-bottle production is divided as follows: 55 percent red, 25 percent white and 20 percent rosé wines, and distribution is organized in 35 countries.
I brothers Marcello and Massimiliano, general manager and winemaker, respectively, I am the fourth generation of the family. They continue to make wines with the same tenacity and methods so dear to the founders: “Making wines looking to the future” is the mission and claim. Wood aging, well calibrated, is the hallmark of Apollonio’s wines, ensures oxygen exchange and color stabilization to enhance the acidity of red wines over the long term. The wines ferment in large Slavonian oak vats, mature in wood and then are bottled without performing any filtration or refrigeration. Maniacal attention is devoted to the selection of grapes on the vine and to the welfare of the old sapling vines.
A Taormina Gourmet, the event annually organized by Taste Chronicles, a group of lucky people led by Daniele Cernilli and Massimiliano Apollonio had the opportunity to take a journey between past, present and future with the vertical of Copertino Rosso Riserva Divoto from 1978 to 2013, a time walk that began with the first vintage on the market up to the last one previewed. The Divoto Reserve is not produced every year and is perhaps Apollonio’s most emblematic and daring wine.
The Copertino Doc
Apollonio’s Divoto is part of a very small appellation, the
Copertino Doc
established in 1976,
which also features wines from Garofano vineyards and wineries, Cupertinum, Marulli and Petrelli. According to specifications, the production area is located in Copertino, Carmiano, Arnesano, Monteroni and, in part, the municipalities of Galatina and Lequile. The denomination is intended for red and rosé wines made from Negroamaro grapes with the addition, to a lesser extent, of Malvasia nera di Lecce or Montepulciano up to a maximum of 30 percent; Sangiovese, on the other hand, must not exceed 15 percent of the total number of vines. The reserve to be defined as such must age for at least 24 months.
“
From the oenological miracle of the union of two apparently so different varieties, Negroamaro and Montepulciano, comes this appellation, a pearl of the Salento area, which gives birth to wines of great longevity suitable for long aging –
said Massimiliano Apollonio -. Negroamaro owes its name to the terms. niger
(Latin) and
mavros (Greek) meaning both black, is a grape variety with great versatility, it is suitable for all types of winemaking. Montepulciano, a grape variety grown in much of the east coast of Italy, has impressive acidity when young that, when properly dosed, allows it to age superbly. Severino Garofano was the winemaker who most believed in its value by promoting it around the world“.
The Divoto Reserve
The year 1997 marked the transition in the winery in the role of winemaker from father to son, the honor and burden passing from Salvatore to Maximilian. In Divoto the percentage of grapes would also change; it was an assemblage from Negroamaro, Malvasia and Montepulciano, since 2001 Malvasia disappears.
“
Older wines are like time capsules, they take us back to eras long past
– Daniele Cernilli explained -. Looking at the color in the glass, the ’78 and ’93 vintages seem to come from a different time in history because there is probably different ripening, maceration and winemaking. The color of wine says almost everything if you know how to look at it. Negroamaro is the exact opposite of Primitivo, it ripens a month later and has few anthocyanins, the coloring substances.”
Cernilli then continued: “My tasting starts from the oldest vintage to the most recent, the great Giacomo Tachis taught me that younger vintages have more tannin and gagliardia, if I were to opt for a vertical tasting in reverse I would run the risk of not appreciating as much as is necessary the older“.
The Apollonio Prize
In 2005, the Apollonio family established the Apollonio Prize, an event that opens the Salento summer in the Rector’s Office of the University of Salento, in Lecce. Of the artistic direction of Neri Marcorè. The award originates from Marcello and Maximilian’s desire to pay tribute first and foremost to their parents who passed away prematurely, people dedicated to family and work, and later Apulians, either by birth or by artistic merit, who bring prestige to their land in the fields of entertainment, literature, and creativity in general.
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