Leone de Castris celebrates 80 years of Italian rosé

This year, Puglia’s Leone de Castris marks the 80th anniversary of Five Roses, Italy’s first bottled rosato wine.

With a history stretching back to the 17th century, Leone de Castris can boast of 15 generations of grape growers and four generations of winemakers.

In 1943, as Puglia came under the occupation of the Allied forces, Piero Leone Plantera would produce the first vintage of Five Roses. Made largely from Negroamaro (the rest from Malvasia Nera), as it is today, it was bought and distributed to the US Army under the orders of General Charles Poletti, hence the wines English name.

There are three possible reasons for the number five being chosen. ‘Cinque Rose’ was the name of the Salice Salentino fiefdom, alternatively, many generations of the Leone de Castris family also had five children. The third theory is that American soldiers called the drink as such because it was one better than Four Roses Bourbon.

The original bottle was, in fact, a brown-glassed beer bottle that did not necessarily showcase the wine’s pink hue in the manner one might expect from modern rosé packaging.

Though rosé/rosato is widely produced in Italy now, including in Abruzzo where it is known as Cerasuolo, in 1943 it was a style almost completely unheard of in the country. Indeed, the development of Five Roses preceded the post-war European rosé boom.

Since then, Five Roses has been a pillar of this historic Pugliese brand. In 2007, Leone de Castris even produced a novel, Five Roses of Negroamaro, explaining the wine’s emergence from the hardship of World War II.

A spokesperson for Leone de Castris told db at Vinitaly that the secret to Five Roses’ longevity was to “start in the vineyard”: “We are not currently certified organic, but we are sustainable an cutting down on waste…we have to keep doing what we are doing, while keeping an eye on innovation.”

One such innovation mentioned was investing in a new crusher that can crush the grapes more softly, without splitting the seeds and extracting astringent tannins.

Technology, winemaking knowledge and marketing have certainly advanced significantly in the last eight decades, but Leone de Castris has retained the yellow label with striking red text, though there is now the addition of a badge commemorating the milestone anniversary.

While the US military might have been expected to pair Five Roses with slightly more austere fare, suggested dishes in today’s more plentiful times include risotto, white meat, seafood and Puglia’s traditional ‘frisa salentina’, a crisp bread topped with fresh tomatoes and, in some variations, olives, capers and cheese.