The Drink Business | Altamura Distilleries goes with the grain to make Pugliese Vodka

db speaks to Altamura Distilleries managing director Frank Grillo to discover how the brand is utilising Puglia’s ancient wheat varieties to create vodka, Italian style.

“Despite his Sicilian heritage and sharing a surname with one of the island’s best-known grape varieties, US-born Grillo is blazing a trail for spirits, rather than wine, in Puglia, rather than Sicily. When asked how he ended up in the heel of the Apennine Penisula, Grillo said: “By accident! When we were looking where to move in Italy, we knew we wanted to head somewhere south. We looked at airport access and good food, and Puglia flies to the top pretty quickly when it comes to that, so even though we’d never been here, we said ‘let’s go’. Puglia is already renowned for the quality of its bread, and no meal in the region is complete without a healthy portion of crusty carbohydrates, perhaps accompanied by a generous glass of Primitivo and plenty of locally-produced olive oil…

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