Puglia · Wine route · 1 day

Salento Negroamaro and Primitivo Trail Negroamaro's home villages and Primitivo's capital in one 62 km line across the Salento plain: Lecce, Squinzano, Salice Salentino, Guagnano and Manduria.

62
km end to end
1
1 day
5
stops, Lecce to Manduria
€20
tastings from

Why this drive: Two of Italy's best-value reds grow 40 minutes apart on this plain, and the drive connects their capitals. Salice Salentino is Negroamaro's home village, with Cantine Due Palme booking cellar visits from 20 euro nearby at Cellino San Marco. Manduria is Primitivo's, with a wine museum in the Produttori co-op's old cellars. Start under Lecce's baroque stone, finish on sweet Dolce Naturale in Manduria, and watch the bush vines flash past between them.

The route, drawn

See the whole road, then drive it stop by stop

The map stays with you as you read: scroll the stops and it follows, or press a marker to jump. Leg times are door to door, before the views slow you down.

Layers
The drive Numbered stops Estates near the route
1

Stop 1 · Baroque base camp

Lecce

ZTL city, see the driving notes

The Salento's baroque capital and the natural overnight base.

What to taste here

  • Negroamaro di Terra d'OtrantoDOC The DOC named for the old Terra d'Otranto province, poured across the city's wine bars
  • Salento rosato Negroamaro's pink side, the local summer standard for eighty years

Start with an evening in the stone streets: the Duomo square, Santa Croce's carved facade, a glass of rosato. Leave by the ring road toward Squinzano in the morning.

Where to eat

Ciceri e tria

Alle due Corti. Corte dei Giugni 1 on the corner of Via Prato; Rosalba De Carlo's kitchen of old Salento recipes, open Monday to Saturday, closed Sunday

Find it on the map Its own site

2

Stop 2 · The forgotten DOC

Squinzano

Negroamaro town between Lecce and the Brindisi border, name of its own DOC.

What to taste here

  • SquinzanoDOC A once-famous blending name now bottling its own dark Negroamaro again
  • BrindisiDOC The next DOC north; its Susumaniello reds are the plain's inside tip

Cantine Due Palme's cellar door at Cellino San Marco sits ten minutes north and books online. The town itself is workaday: this stop is about the vineyards around it.

Where to taste

Cellino San Marco · 8 km off

Cantine Due Palme

Tastings from €20

Booking required

View winery

Wines to Try

A few wines from the estates above.

3

Stop 3 · Negroamaro's capital

Salice Salentino

The village that gives Negroamaro's flagship DOC its name.

What to taste here

  • Salice SalentinoDOC The DOC that carries the grape's flag; Riserva shows the smoky, plummy depth
  • Five Roses Leone de Castris bottled Italy's first named rosato here in 1943; it still pours in town

Leone de Castris anchors the village. Castello Monaci's estate sits in the vines just outside, listing three bookable visits.

4

Stop 4 · Growers' village

Guagnano

A small Salice Salentino DOC comune thick with family cellars.

What to taste here

  • Salice SalentinoDOC Guagnano sits inside the DOC and bottles some of its best-value Riserva
  • CopertinoDOC The neighbouring Negroamaro DOC, worth an extra bottle for the boot

Cellar doors cluster along the through-road. This is the stop for filling the boot rather than touring.

Where to taste

San Pancrazio Salentino · 6 km off

Castello Monaci

Booking required

View winery

Wines to Try

A few wines from the estates above.

5

Stop 5 · Primitivo's capital

Manduria

ZTL city, see the driving notes

Primitivo's home town, wine museum included.

What to taste here

  • Primitivo di ManduriaDOC The DOC at full strength on home ground; old bush-vine bottlings are the ones to chase
  • Primitivo di Manduria Dolce NaturaleDOCG The sweet DOCG version, picked late and poured with dessert

The Museo della Civiltà del Vino Primitivo sits in the Produttori co-op's old cellars. Walk the old town and its Jewish quarter before the tasting, and leave the car outside the walls.

Where to eat

Salento plates and meat off the wood grill

Ristorante al Castello. Inside the 1700s Palazzo Imperiali by the old castle, a restaurant since 1979, pouring Primitivo di Manduria and Negroamaro

Find it on the map Its own site

Before you go

The practicalities

Visit prices are set by the winery and availability should be checked before travelling. Bookings open on the estate page or the provider's site.

Leave the driving out

Do this route with a guide

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Tours in this wine area

Nearby, not the route itself

Rich tasting of Salento wines

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2 hours From €60
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Discover the best cellars of Salento

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Historical Cellar Visit and Wine Tasting in Salento

Castel di Salve is one of Puglia's historic wineries, founded in 1885 in Depressa by Antonio Winspeare, Duke of Salve with the goal of producting quality table wines. ...

1 hour 30 minutes From €30
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Where to sleep on the route

One estate on this road has rooms, so you can book the cellar and the bed together.

Castello Monaci
Puglia · San Pancrazio Salentino

Castello Monaci

Salento estate near San Pancrazio Salentino with a 16th-century castle and a white tuff cellar built by the Memmo family in the 1970s. Around it grow 200 hectares of Primitivo, Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera di Lecce vines. Open daily for cellar tours, the on-site Merum wine museum, and tastings of Piluna, Maru, Liante and Kreos.

Red grapePrimitivo
3wines From £16.40

Reading the labels you'll pass

The wine country it crosses

Primitivo di Manduria DOC

This is old-vine Primitivo, from Salento's red soils, ripened by the Ionian sun.

Before you ask

Salento Negroamaro and Primitivo Trail, answered

No. Two official roads cover this ground: one for the Salice Salentino cluster of DOCs and one for Primitivo di Manduria and Lizzano. This trail links the heart of both in a single line, Lecce to Manduria.

The driving is 62 km and a little over an hour. With a cellar visit on the Salice stretch, lunch and the Manduria wine museum it fills a full day. Sleeping in Lecce keeps both ends easy.

Book at least a day ahead. In our live data Cantine Due Palme takes online bookings for three formats from 20 euro, and Castello Monaci confirms its three visits on request. Nothing on this trail relies on walk-ups.

Negroamaro makes dark, savoury reds with a bitter edge on the finish, at its best as Salice Salentino Riserva. Primitivo picks earlier and drinks riper and sweeter, at full strength as Primitivo di Manduria. Tasting both in one day is the point of this drive.

Lecce's centre gates every night from nine to six in the morning, and all day on Sundays and holidays. Foro Boario has 350 spaces at 60 cents an hour, capped at 2 euro a day and a short walk in; Settelacquare has 400 with a 2 euro park and ride shuttle.

Early. Primitivo is picked from late August, among the first red grapes in Italy, and Negroamaro follows through September. Book cellar visits ahead in those weeks: the estates are working, and the drying racks for Dolce Naturale fill as picking ends.

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