Francesco Winspeare (at right in the photo) believes that there is a great place to grow Australian wine. It’s called Australia. He also believes that Puglia – and, indeed, Italy – has more than enough wineries whose wines lack a track record, but not a mission statement.
Meeting Francesco
(both of them)
Southbound, once past the beautiful baroque city of Lecce, Puglia’s landscape becomes nearly flat with outcrops of palm trees sprouting from ferrous reddish soil. This flat part of mountainous Italy has put many travelers in mind of North Africa, Greece and of the Middle East. So quiet was the atmosphere and stark the terrain that it did seem appropriate that winery be located in the hamlet of Depressa, just 8 kilometers North of Capo Santa Maria di Leuca, the very tip of the heel.
In the center of the three-street village of Depressa is the Castel di Salve winery originally built in 1879 by the Winspeare family and restored in 1992.
I was kept waiting for my appointment as a meeting wrapped up between a handsome 40 year-old Italian with reddish brown hair dressed casually but well in an olive plaid sport-jacket and khaki pants speaking English with a distinct British accent, and a rotund, bald older Englishman nattily attired in an olive corduroy jacket and tan pleated pants, a loose ascot subbing for a tie. I exchanged pleasantries with the Oddbins’ agent for Italy and on his departure he introduced me to the Italian, Francesco Winspeare.
I was incorrect in assuming that Winspeare had bought a promising estate in the Mezzagiorno (Italy, South of Rome) or moved down from Chiantishire. Though Francesco went to university in London, the Winspeare family has lived and promulgated in Italy since ancestor Charles Winspeare arrived as part of the British consulate in Livorno in 1695.
And what a family it is. Succeeding Winspeares became Governor of Calabria, a General in the Army of the Russian Czar who battled Napoleon, and a famous jurist who after writing a treaty settling a dispute between the King of Italy and land barons in the South was made a baron himself. The exploits of Francesco Winspeare’s great-grandfather, Antonio (deceased 1918) ties us to the present. In recognition of his service to Garibaldi’s forces in the Risorgimento, Antonio was made Governor of the region of Puglia. He married a Princess of Puglia, from which union was inherited the land that became the Castel di Salve estate.
In addition to the fruits, vegetables and nuts extant on the property, vineyards were planted in 1867, the original winery built in 1879 and the first wines bottled in 1885. As the family was not pressed financially and themselves ate the produce of their own land extending nearly 100 hectares, the Winspeares developed a keen interest in agronomy. Francesco, in fact, has a degree in Agronomy acquired in Italy to accompany the one acquired in Business Administration in England.
When young Francesco succeeded his father as manager of their family farm in 1990, the great majority of Castel di Salve’s grapes were sold to large wineries and négociants. He became increasingly frustrated that his premium quality produce received the same price – or a mere fraction more – than the ordinary high yield crop of his neighbors. He shared his frustration with a neighboring farmer, Francesco Marra, his close friend “since we were 3 years old,” says Winspeare. Marra is a bit of an “international man” himself, having worked for a few years at a (plant, mostly trees) nursery in Miami after Agronomy school in Italy.
Together they teamed up as business partners to revitalize Castel di Salve as an estate bottler. Approximately half of the grapes come from Francesco Marra’s land (a few kilometers to the west) and half from Winspeare’s Castel di Salve estate.
Winspeare’s plot of land lies on the peninsula’s Adriatic side. It is composed of reddish ferrous soil with a high degree of sand. Cool breezes from the Adriatic preserve acidity in the grapes and freshness in the wines.
Across a smooth ridge no more than 100 meters altitude and running parallel to the peninsula lies Francesco Marra’s land. Here the soil turns more beige with a higher concentration of clay, a bit of limestone and far less sand. Grapes here have more tannin and provide wines of structure.
It is the norm for Winspeare and Marra to combine the grapes of the two vineyards according to the intended wine (cuveé). Forty-five of the winery’s potential 62 hectares of vineyard land are under vine. Marra and Winspeare have determined that production will not exceed 15,000 cases. Thus they have continued and will continue to sell grapes for cash flow and to assure that the best fruit remain in their hands.
They assure me, with a satisfied smile, that they exact a better deal for their fruit than did their fathers.