Italy · Salento Peninsula (Lecce & lower Brindisi)

Cantine Due Palme

A 1,000-grower cooperative in Cellino San Marco, Puglia, founded in 1989 by Angelo Maci. Selvarossa, its Negroamaro-based Salice Salentino Riserva, won Gambero Rosso's Tre Bicchieri for the 2019 vintage.

The producer

Cantine Due Palme was built from three mid-century cooperatives, one established as far back as 1955, that Angelo Maci consolidated in Cellino San Marco in 1989. The logic was collective: one thousand winegrowers now farm approximately 2,500 hectares across the provinces of Brindisi, Taranto and Lecce, maintaining the traditional alberello bush-vine training that Salento's sustained summer heat demands. Alberello is a low, self-supporting vine system with no trellis; it concentrates the harvest into fewer, more intensely flavoured clusters and requires hand picking throughout. At the scale Due Palme operates, 250,000 quintals of grapes processed annually across two production centres, that farming commitment is what keeps Selvarossa credible.

Selvarossa is a Salice Salentino Riserva DOC built on Negroamaro with Malvasia Nera, barrel-aged before release. The nose opens with toasted oak, sweet spice and black fruits; the palate is compact, rich in dark fruit, with a long finish and the earthy, herbal thread that runs through Negroamaro wherever it grows in the Salento heat. Gambero Rosso described the 2019 Riserva as rich, deep, harmonious and articulated, awarding it Tre Bicchieri. The 2020 carries the same Mediterranean warmth with a more openly modern character. Twenty-five wines span the three provinces; Selvarossa sits at the top.

Known for

Negroamaro, Salice Salentino DOC, alberello farming

Notable facts

The story

The Succession

In October 2021, Melissa Maci became president of Cantine Due Palme, the cooperative her father Angelo had built from three merged cellars and run for thirty-two years. The handoff was unusual. Large Italian cooperatives of this size typically rotate the presidency among elected grower-members, a democratic system designed to keep no single interest dominant. Angelo had built Due Palme differently, around the conviction that collective effort could produce something none of the individual growers could achieve working alone, and he had stayed at the centre of that effort since 1989. Passing the presidency to his daughter, who had worked across multiple roles inside the organisation before taking the top position, kept the founding logic intact while placing the cooperative in a new generation's hands. Angelo had spent thirty-two years growing the membership to 1,000 growers and the annual harvest to 250,000 quintals. Melissa now runs the organisation he built.

From the atlas

Cantine Due Palme

At A Glance

The Producer

Angelo Maci founded Cantine Due Palme in Cellino San Marco in 1989 by consolidating three older local cooperatives, one established as far back as 1955, into a single organisation. His logic was direct: he articulated it in a phrase that still defines the cooperative today, that winning alone is possible but winning together is better. What he built over the following three decades was one of southern Italy's larger cooperative operations, drawing on 1,000 member winegrowers farming approximately 2,500 hectares across the provinces of Brindisi, Taranto and Lecce.

The wine that carries Due Palme's name externally is Selvarossa, a Salice Salentino Riserva made from Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera. Gambero Rosso awarded it Tre Bicchieri for the 2019 vintage, its highest recognition tier. A cooperative processing 250,000 quintals of grapes annually across two production centres is an industrial operation by volume; what keeps Selvarossa credible at that scale is the farming beneath it.

Place

The Salento peninsula is the southernmost part of Puglia, the long narrow region that forms the heel of Italy's boot. It is flat, sun-baked, and surrounded on three sides by sea: the Adriatic to the east, the Ionian to the west and south. Temperatures in July and August regularly exceed 35 degrees Celsius. Rainfall is low and concentrated in winter. The coastal influence moderates the heat slightly and keeps humidity in check through summer.

Negroamaro is the grape native to this landscape. In that heat, it ripens fully and produces wine with deep colour, substantial body, and a characteristic profile: earthy, herbal and spicy alongside ripe dark fruit. The Salice Salentino DOC occupies a zone within the Salento sub-region, straddling the provinces of Brindisi and Lecce, and it is built around Negroamaro as its primary grape. Riserva wines must meet minimum ageing requirements under DOC rules before release, which pushes the fruit character toward greater depth and integration.

Soil And Site

The verified farming detail for Due Palme's member vineyards is alberello training, the traditional Puglian bush-vine system in which each vine grows as a low, self-supporting plant without trellis or wire. Alberello limits yield by design: the vine's energy concentrates in fewer clusters, and the low canopy shades the soil and fruit from the most direct summer heat. Harvesting alberello vines requires hand picking, because the vine shape does not accommodate mechanical harvesters. Across 2,500 hectares, with 1,000 growers maintaining that system through a Salento summer, the farming commitment is considerable. Soil type across the member holdings has not been confirmed in available sources.

Story

The three cooperatives that became Due Palme were founded in 1955, 1959 and 1961, in the years when the Italian cooperative wine movement was expanding rapidly across the south. They operated separately for decades, each drawing on local grower members in and around Cellino San Marco. When Maci consolidated them in 1989, he was not creating something new from scratch; he was rationalising what already existed into an organisation capable of acting at greater scale. The name Due Palme refers to the two palm trees that stand in front of the main winery building.

Maci ran the cooperative for thirty-two years. In October 2021, his daughter Melissa Maci succeeded him as president, a transition that passed the organisation's leadership within the founding family rather than through the rotating grower-member elections common in Italian cooperatives of this size. Melissa had worked across multiple roles inside the cooperative before taking the presidency. The organisation she inherited had grown from a merger of three small cellars into a 1,000-grower body with Selvarossa carrying national critical recognition.

Vineyards And Cellar

Due Palme draws grapes from approximately 2,500 hectares of member vineyards spread across Brindisi, Taranto and Lecce. The cooperative processes around 250,000 quintals of grapes each year across two production centres. Member vineyards are trained in alberello, the low bush-vine system that forces hand harvesting and concentrates the vine's output into a smaller crop per plant. In the sustained heat of a Salento growing season, that concentration builds ripe, dark fruit with the tannin depth that Negroamaro carries when fully matured.

Selvarossa is barrel-aged before release as a Riserva. The precise ageing duration is not confirmed in available sources, but the Riserva designation under Salice Salentino DOC rules sets a minimum ageing period. Blend percentages for Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera in Selvarossa are not confirmed.

Wines

Due Palme's portfolio covers twenty-five wines drawing on Puglian appellations across the three provinces. Salice Salentino DOC is the appellation at the top of the range, and Selvarossa sits at the top of that appellation tier.

Selvarossa is a Salice Salentino Riserva DOC built on Negroamaro with Malvasia Nera. The nose carries toasted notes, sweet spices and black fruits; the palate is compact and rich in fruit with a long finish. The 2019 Riserva was described by Gambero Rosso as rich, deep, harmonious and articulated, earning Tre Bicchieri. The 2020 Riserva drew the same reviewers toward a well-crafted, modern character with a Mediterranean quality to the fruit. Across both vintages the wine presents the earthy, herbal and spicy baseline that Negroamaro produces in the Salento heat, deepened by barrel ageing and the Riserva minimum.

Below Selvarossa, the portfolio extends across the province range, covering IGT and other DOC levels from the member growers' holdings in Brindisi, Taranto and Lecce.

In The Glass

Negroamaro from the Salento gives Selvarossa its frame: deep ruby in the glass, dark fruit on the nose, and a palate that is full-bodied and tannic without losing the grape's characteristic herbal and earthy edge. In Selvarossa, the nose opens with toasted oak, sweet spice and black fruits, followed by a compact palate where the tannins are present but absorbed into the fruit mass. The finish is long. The 2019 shows the harmonious, integrated quality that Tre Bicchieri recognises; the 2020 carries more of Negroamaro's Mediterranean warmth at the surface, with the modern character that comes from precise barrel management at cooperative scale.

The herbal and spicy notes in Negroamaro are not simply aromatics; they run through the palate and into the finish, giving the wine a savouriness that cuts through the dark fruit weight. That combination of ripe fruit, earthy depth and persistent spice is the grape's contribution, and Salento's heat is what pushes it to full ripeness without losing the herbal thread.

A Bottle To Understand It

Selvarossa Salice Salentino Riserva DOC is the right first bottle. It is Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera from Salento's hottest growing zone, barrel-aged to Riserva standard, and it carries everything the cooperative's member vineyards produce: dark fruit ripeness, earthy spice, toasted depth on the nose, and a palate that is compact and long-finishing. The wine is full-bodied and warm, with tannins that are firm but not hard. Start here and you have the grape, the appellation, the cooperative's farming philosophy and its critical standing in one glass.

Anecdote

In October 2021, Melissa Maci became president of Cantine Due Palme, the cooperative her father Angelo had built from three merged cellars and run for thirty-two years. The handoff was unusual. Large Italian cooperatives of this size typically rotate the presidency among elected grower-members; it is a democratic system by design, meant to keep no single interest too dominant. Angelo had built Due Palme differently, around the idea that collective effort could produce something none of the individual growers could achieve alone, and he had stayed at the centre of that effort since 1989. Passing the presidency to his daughter, who had worked across multiple roles inside the organisation before taking the top position, kept the founding logic intact while placing the cooperative in a new generation's hands. Angelo had spent thirty-two years growing the membership to 1,000 growers and the harvest to 250,000 quintals annually. Melissa now runs the organisation he built.

Final Word

Cantine Due Palme is where cooperative scale and traditional Salento farming meet a bottle that earns national recognition. One thousand growers hand-harvesting alberello bush vines in Puglia's southern heat, feeding a single DOC wine: Selvarossa is the argument that cooperative wine can be precise and individual. The Riserva is the bottle to seek.

Sources

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