HISTORY & PEOPLE

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Ambassador of Puglia in the world. A deserved title for Al Bano Carrisi who, maybe more than any other popular person, loves his land and has never gone away. A title that the popular singer is well happy “to carry”: with his music he has contributed to make the region known internationally. And from a few years, also the wines produced in his town of origin: Cellino San Marco, a little rural centre in the province of Brindisi, in the heart of the Salentinian peninsula. Here, together with his brother Franco, he has built a real reign, where, from the great expanses vineyard rows, quality wines are produced, which have won the most prestigious awards, sometimes accompanied by evocative labels of Al Bano’s most successful songs like “Felicita’” and “Nostalgia”. A project of economical re-launch of the Salento area, which includes, a part from the farm and wine production, an elegant tourist village that Al Bano has personally cured in its details, often working next to master craftsmen (with over 50 rooms and apartments and a good restaurant “Don Camelo” where the traditional Apulian gastronomy goes side by side with the cosmopolitan cuisine) and his record company.

Why did you choose Cellino?

Because I was born here, this is the place of my soul. As soon as I can, when I an able to get away from my professional commitments, I come here. To simply admire the olive trees, go for a walk in the woods or through the vineyards (a territory of over 130 hectares, 70 of which are cultivated mostly with vines and olive trees and the remaining 60 are a rich bushy area), to find peace and serenity. And I wanted to build my universe right here. When I was 16 I left home, I abandoned the hard life of being a farmer, and I promised my father that I would have came back and built him a beautiful wine cellar. So that’s exactly what I did and the first wine in 1973, couldn’t have been called differently from him, which is “Don Carmelo”, a red wine made from native vineyards (afterwards put side by side to a white wine made with Chardonnay, both with Geographical Territory Identification). I’s a wine that I’m very fond of, especially because it makes me remember all the sacrifices I’ve had to face before being able to “snatch”a contract with a record company and earn some money. I sent my first earnings to my father so that he could buy himself a tractor.

What are the secrets to obtain a good wine?

A good wine must be treated with love and passion, with full respect of the laws of nature. Therefore, first of all, a special attention to the production. Our grapes are harvested and worked in the exact moment that they are ripe and then the same skilful and expert hands take care of following the various phases of work, until the ageing of the wine in oak barrels. I consider the land as a second mother and we must have the same respect for it, as we do towards men. And since the first tester of my products is myself, I can’t but make “healthy” wine and oil!

Are there analogies between your songs and Bacchus’s nectar?

Wine has many analogies with music: it’s the sign of an artist, a storyteller. It is able to console, unite, cheer up. It improves moods and turns on one’s fantasy. It brings into light a secret world, often intimate. Wine and music celebrate a perfect combination, an efficient “liaison” nourished by passion, that would be limited to lead back to a simple business. Moreover, the Estate is not self-supported, everything, for the moment, is financed by my job as a singer.

Besides wine, do you also like good food?

I like eating and I am an excellent cook. I love preparing meat, fish, with elaborated recipes but also a simple plate of pasta. My favourite? Orecchiette pasta with turnip tops, a classic dish of our Puglia.

Which is your favorite wine brand?

Definitely “Platone”, a rich and concentrated mix of Primitivo and Negroamaro (50% of each), a red with great body and elegance, aged in barriques (amongst other things Platone 2005 has been recently awarded and inserted in the book “Duemilavini” – two thousand wines- that gathers all the best productions of Italian winemakers). Platone was the first great philosopher who wrote about wine, while the ancient Greeks were the first ones who introduced the vineyards in Puglia, which was back then part of Magna Grecia. Platone would often say that “every year that counts is not a year that goes by”, I like to say that “every wine that counts is not a wine that is forgotten”.

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