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The story is in the name

In contrada Liponti, Gioia del Colle, in the late 18th century a canon gave Primitivo its name and planted its first vineyard. Two centuries later, the vineyard has returned.

The stone stele marking the site of the first Primitivo vineyard

The Primicerio and the ‘primativo’

Don Francesco Filippo Indellicati (1767-1831) was the Primicerio of Gioia del Colle: a canon who led the church community as first among equals, and a keen student of botany.

At the time vines were grown haphazardly, with different varieties in the same vineyard. Indellicati noticed one that performed better than all the others:

The one best suited to the red soils, giving an early, abundant and excellent crop.Giuseppe Musci, Il Primativo di Gioia, 1919

It ripened between the end of August and the first half of September, ahead of the others. So he called it primativo, from the Latin primativus: the name that would become primaticcio and then Primitivo.

Why this vine

Primitivo buds late, and so escapes the spring frosts. It ripens early, and is harvested before the autumn rains and fogs arrive. On the red soils of the Murgia, these two qualities made the difference between a healthy harvest and a lost one.

The eight plots of contrada Liponti

After careful selection, the Primicerio propagated the vine from cuttings and planted eight plots of it at Liponti, also known as Carrara or delle Carrare, in the contrada Terzi of Gioia del Colle. It is the first single-variety Primitivo vineyard for which historical evidence exists.

From here, in the early decades of the 19th century, Primitivo spread around Gioia and the province of Bari; towards the end of the century it reached Manduria and the Taranto area, Daunia and the Matera area.

The panel telling the history of the site, at the vineyard entrance
The panel at the vineyard entrance, in contrada Liponti.

The 2004 stele

On 19 May 2004 the Municipality of Gioia del Colle placed a stone stele by the artist F. Cotrufo in contrada Liponti. On one side, a bas-relief shows the Primicerio's hands planting a Primitivo vine; on the other are carved lines from the Ballata del vino generoso by Nunzia Sala Bianco.

Today the stele welcomes everyone who enters the vineyard.

Phylloxera and the return

Between the late 19th and the mid-20th century phylloxera destroyed almost all of Italy's vineyards, and all trace of the Primicerio's vineyard was lost. The land passed to the Benagiano family, who planted a new vineyard there in the 1950s; years of neglect followed.

In 2010 Vincenzo Benagiano brought Primitivo back to contrada Liponti, using only certified rooted cuttings. Since 2018 the vineyard has belonged to his daughter Stefania, and since 2019 its wine has had a name that says it all: Nascìddò, ‘born here’ in the Gioia del Colle dialect.

From 1799 to today

  1. The Primicerio Indellicati plants the first vineyard and coins the name Primitivo.
  2. Phylloxera destroys the vineyards. All trace of the vineyard is lost.
  3. Vincenzo Benagiano (1884-1980) buys the land.
  4. Vincenzo himself plants a new vineyard.
  5. The land passes to Felicia Benagiano and is left abandoned.
  6. The land passes to Vincenzo Benagiano.
  7. Vincenzo replants Primitivo with certified rooted cuttings.
  8. The estate passes to his daughter Stefania.
  9. Vigna Liponti is born, and with it Nascìddò.

Sources

  • Giuseppe Musci, Il Primativo di Gioia, 1919 (cited in the works below).
  • Giuseppe Baldassarre, Primitivo di Puglia. Storia di uve, epopea di vignaioli e di vini, Input Edizioni.
  • Antonio Calò, Angelo Costacurta, Primitivo. Il vino dei due mondi, Kellermann.
  • Antonio Calò, Liana Bertoldi Lenoci (eds), Storia regionale della vite e del vino. Le Puglie: Daunia, Terra di Bari, Terra d'Otranto, Accademia Italiana della Vite e del Vino, Edizioni Pugliesi.