Anyone Familiar with Wines from Savuto DOC [Calabria]?

Drinks Chat
#1

As per the question really - I used to visit Calabria a lot for work, and my work would always see me travelling all over the place. A truly magnificent place is Calabria. One time circa 15 years ago I made the fatal error of bringing back a bottle of red Savuto - all I can remember about it - and neglecting to make a note / photo of the name etc when we drank [and loved] it. A bad habit I had at the time.

It was from a bakery of all places, in Amantea, and bought on a whim simply cos I liked the look of it and I’d had a particularly good day and wanted to pick up something with “local terroir” etc to mark it, for 10E if I remember rightly; and it’s become one of those wines that mightily bugs me. It had everything and more we like about a red wine - lovely ethereal nose with violets in particular, almost Brunello-ish, and a lovely firm body with smooth tannins and lovely balance. Maybe from a bit of Sanjo / Nerello in it. It’s also very evocative of a particular period in my life. Not least when I met my wife - we’ve got our 10th wedding anniversary next year, and I’m the kind of sentimental old sop who likes to mark such things with particular “stuff” from our early times together. Any excuse to buy wine …

However, I’ve barely been able to find any names of wines from Savuto, let alone find any you can get here. I know Savuto reds are generally blends of all sorts, some relatively unusual, so it could have been anything really.

Anyone able to pierce the fog around this by any chance? Or know any Savuto stock here / shippable to here?

I must confess I’ve done similar with various Aglianicos, of which I brought back many bottles over the years and which we both adore, but they’re easy to find here / get shipped here. A few Brunellos too that wowed us and remain sadly unknown. But it’s this Savuto that bugs me the most as it was so unexpected to be quite so wowed by it.

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#2

Italy is so full of exciting and unusual wines and this is one I’ve never laid my hands on. I’ve had various Ciros (feature on the W/S list) and Greco di Bianco sweet wine. A lot of the producers in Calabria are very small scale and the wines are often hard to find outside the region.

Looking at Winesearcher there are no UK stockists at the moment. Importing from the EU may be tricky at the moment for we all know why…Looks like the grape varieties are similar to some of the Ciro wines of Santa Venere that are on the list. Have a decent range of wines, 2 reds at the moment:

Good luck in your search though!

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#3

Thanks Nick - I’ve tried both of those, with that Ciro being among the very first Wine Soc wines I bought, in the vain hope etc. Both pretty good but different beasts to my mysterious one.

I’m fancying a trip back to Calabria and then on to Greece again, via Puglia of course, for some serious local research :~}

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#4

I found myself searching for Savuto wines again last night; I’m still bugged by this vinous memory!

Nothing showing though; again.

So I’m just raising this back up the board just in case any recently-joined folk may be able to help.

I suspect there’s nothing for it but to get back there and fill my boots. Lovely place to visit anyway, but not sure how I might convince wife of the importance of this :~}

#5

This?

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#6

Well well … thank you @Andy999

Beyond my means unfortunately and a bit of a gamble given its age anyway, but really interesting to see this :~}