Salento….
From “LIBERO” issued on August 13, 2010 – author: Carlo Cambi
Salento sea … From Manduria to Santa Maria di Leuca
a journey through the olive trees in search of the Primitive to discover the esoteric charm of a … The radio hammering the last war report from the bags. Listening to it feels imprisoned in the fortress Bastiani. Waiting for an invisible enemy. But I’m not crossing a “Desert of the Tartars”. I left a few miles from the coast road that leads north from Gallipoli, Porto Cesareo, follow the profile of that sea which is the emerald Ionian epic. The ripples in the coast of Cornwall cliffs then plunges into the golden sands and looking at the horizon’re expecting to see that carry the sails of Illyria Messapi proud to fertilize the land of rust. The Greeks came from the Adriatic, and had to boatswain invelato Ulysses myth, but when I looked out from that which is absolute beauty that adorns Otranto in recent months of the metaphysics of Salvador Dali, in a show not to be missed, that this sea extreme south and east has dazzling sapphire last it seemed to me at home. The Ionian not – yet it is an ocean lake – thrills of mystery. I’m crossing a county Macchiaiolo, the forms of ancient olive trees in the background brush matted clumps of carmine and tuff quarries and stone walls are sketches of matter on the canvas of creation. And here is another milestone Manduria sea: are the vineyards of Primitivo. For tree, spurred cordon, Guyot, awning. Are miles of purple grapes. Peter Varone waiting for me to let me taste the Pirro most extraordinary, the already significant in general, Primitivo di Manduria. This is a unique winemaker as are its wines (the red recovered Grisolia Vigne Rare, the Rare White Vines from Fiano Minutolo el’Artù drinkability of a beautiful sparkling Negramaro) is returned to the house in the ghetto where the Jewish Manduria his family became Marrano, departed. Its Primitive (but also that of the cooperative and Sammarzano Mmonaci Castle) made slight my thoughts. And he tells me: “Salento this year did the +60% of tourists, even Otranto +70”. Then I walk through the alleys of the ghetto under the mild “Pirro Varone” liquid flavor, with cherry and plum material soul, gentle tannins and expression em’affaccio Mediterranean – after having looked on architectures that seem suspended over the centuries with the ubiquitous stone tuff and hard work – at least it was gratadella Synagogue. It is a slap in the face: what is the temple of the origins and the universal feeling here. We grips with globalization, but it has nothing universal. I would like the tarantula pervade the lords of the economy: we would have a better world. Here is an ancient delirium, which is made of explosion of flavors, aromas, colors and memories. This is the universal and this explains to me, even contradictions in the hundred, the magnet Salento. I think you can try here the swoon in the savannas of Blixen: there is a fever and a sore soul of Salento. I can see coming for the event and the Mother Church in Maruggio feel the mystery of the Knights Templar and Hospitallers who commanded the Normans auspices of the immense land of Otranto. I recall that in the lively and dazzling architecture of hyperbole Lecce departs from the square which is the heart Sant’Oronzo house, while the gay nightlife also gastronomic s’alberga today in Piazza Mazzini, because of the Templars. And now I spell awareness of Salento: here is an anthropological fact esotericism becomes evident that in these days with the highlight on August 27 in Melpignano with the night of Taranta s’attendono where over 200 thousand people to consecrate what the world now knows: the pinch is the new blues world. It’s that gricanica, cultural enclave of extraordinary. This is the universality of the Apulia region that become apparent in sixteenth-century farmhouses, colonial villas, forests and olive has its counterpart in the ugly destruction of homes by surveyors, in the skeletons of reinforced concrete. But there are also contradictions in the kitchen. In Porto Cesareo, a lovely bay concluded, I have heard of the lobster dishes in the sea and Co ‘(the chef is going to Cosimo, info: 0833/569533) a real restaurant pied dans l’eau’ Fragrant shrimp that is, it has good raw thick and deep fried, I always feel Cosimino from Porto Cesareo (c / o ‘Big hotels: info 0833/569082) in a scorpion and a scorpion soup wonderful. But then even the seafood here is wonderful lack of wines. It also suffers from the oil in the cuisine offered. Absurd is not it? Salento is a land of olive trees and great wines: Leven try the Mint, the De Castris Salice Salentino, in Cupertino to the Two Palms Duca Carlo Guarini Scorrano i have symphonies Negramaro, Primitivo, Malvasia of Black and White yet it is difficult to find them on the table. And so it goes for the hospitality: it goes from the farm-luxury (and often too Licking) to the B & B so much per pound. But the Salento forgive all you end up tasting really buttery and caciocavalli podolico. Or intoxicated fish of Gallipoli (wonderful the cathedral, alienating the maze of alleys, the allure marineresca) where for the whole next week is the feast of the swordfish and where the drink is made with raw fish on. But there is an even more elegant Salento down where in the vast Ionian and Adriatic meet in Santa Maria di Leuca, beautiful. It’s part of everything that was Salento Terre d’Otranto and Brindisi and Taranto and then southern Murge. And wherever there is a suggestion to the taste and aroma. Here squadernata the universality of the peninsula which is a triangle: the esoteric. So un’albagia. Nardo is approaching a theory of eclectic villas, Moorish, Victorian. It was summer holidays and aristocratic mansions of the lords of tobacco leaves when there were smoking an El Dorado. Then even the tobacco has become global. And the hours seem villas ectoplasm. As Tara. Listening to the radio I saw Scarlett O’Hara shaking her hand and whispered: “Tomorrow is another day”. Tomorrow is still Salento.