Between the rows of Negroamaro and Malvasia lies the tale of the passion and sorrow of two lovers forever suspended in time. Concetta, the winemaker’s youngest daughter, fell head over heels in love with Pietro, a young farmhand in the employ of her father, favoured by the warm summer lands of Salento and the juicy aromas of the ripened grapes....

Between the rows of Negroamaro and Malvasia lies the tale of the passion and sorrow of two lovers forever suspended in time. Concetta, the winemaker’s youngest daughter, fell head over heels in love with Pietro, a young farmhand in the employ of her father, favoured by the warm summer lands of Salento and the juicy aromas of the ripened grapes...
The lovers would meet every night under the light of the moon and spend the day waiting for nightfall to guard their secret. Their love seemed to grow night by night, following the slow phasing of the moon. Under the light of the full moon, their souls seemed to vibrate in unison, cradled by the singing of the crickets. But at the first waning moon Concetta didn’t speak. When Pietro whispered his familiar words to her, she turned her gaze to the moon and a cold wind spread through the rows of vines. Concetta’s eyes remained fixed on the reflections in the sky. The following night, Pietro waited in vain, sitting on the ground among the vines, counting the blades of wet grass. And the next night he did the same.
News spread around the farm that Concetta no longer rose from bed, where she lay still with eyes devoid of light. Pietro didn’t want to believe the rumours and returned every night to wait for his love under the waning moon, which no longer seemed to care for him.
He waited for her for months, going without food or words. That winter was the harshest the farmers had ever experienced and on the nights of the full moon they heard for the first time the wailing of a wolf, which had never before inhabited their lands. There was something agonising in that restless sound that evoked the lament of a man. There were murmurs that the wolf always went to the same place, as if it was waiting for something that never came.
The inhabitants, moved by the heart-rending song, no longer saw the wolf as a threat, but as the eternal protector of the vineyard. The wines of the Cantalupi Estate, from which it draws its name, still guard this secret today.