SULCIS, SARDINIA

In recent years, the producers of this island DOC have upended their focus on quantity to create wines that communicate an incredible sense of place. The unexpected star of this shift, explains Susan Hulme MW, is the sensitive and intense Carignano grape

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Sardinia’s trendy calling card variety is currently Vermentino – its crunchy, vibrant wines with greenapple and lime flavours make it Italy’s answer to Sauvignon Blanc, and probably the best known and most popular Sardinian wine. But perhaps Sardinia’s bestkept vinous secret is Carignano, a characterful, distinctive, terroir-driven black variety that achieves its best expression on the sandy southwestern tip of this large Mediterranean island, in an area known as Sulcis.

It was probably the Phoenicians, founders of the ancient Sulci on the neighbouring island of Sant’Antioco, who first brought vines to Sardinia. Ampelographers believe that Carignano originated in Cariñena in Spain’s Aragón region, where it is also known as Mazuelo, or in Catalonia as Samsó. In France and the US, it becomes Carignan and Carignane. Nowadays, with more than 80,000ha, it is the 11th most cultivated variety in the world.

There are only 1,700ha of Carignano under cultivation in the Sulcis area, but it has such a strong identity here. Old-vine Carignano has an amazing capacity to resist the salty breezes in such a hot and increasingly dry climate. In fact, it thrives here like almost nowhere else; it is late to ripen and likes a warm, dry climate with plenty of light. Also, the Mistral winds from the northwest, which blow through this part of the island especially from April until October, give relief from the heat.