Es

Es is Gianfranco Fino’s Primitivo from the countryside around Manduria and Sava, in Puglia. The producer classifies it as Salento Primitivo IGT; its Italian distributor lists the 2023 as 100 per cent Primitivo.

The vines are trained as alberello, low free-standing bushes, on flat ground and red, limestone-clayey soil. The producer’s notes for Es, general rather than specific to 2023, describe a hand harvest at the end of August, two to three weeks on the skins in stainless steel, about nine months in oak and around six in bottle before release, with no fining agents.

Tasting the 2023 in August 2025, Falstaff’s Othmar Kiem and Simon Staffler noted cedar and ripe plum, an enveloping texture with noticeable tannins, and a long finish.

Why a wine would be named after Freud’s word for instinct is the subject of The Art of Instinct, in the Journal.