Mostly, Primitivo is grown in Puglia, the tip of Italy.
The major 3 DOC regions are Primitivo di Manduria, Gioia del Colle Primitivo and Falerno del Massico Primitivo.
The Manduria DOC covers still red wine as well as sweet and prepared wine.
Falerno calls for a minimum of 85% Primitivo; the others are 100% Primitivo.
You can also get Gioia del Colle Rosso and Rosato, which promise 50-60% Primitivo, and Cilento Rosso/Rosato which contains around 15%.
Nowadays most Italian Primitivo is made as a rural, greatly alcoholic red wine with up to 16% ABV.
Primitivo is deeply colored, rich, and concentrated with flavors of zesty cherry, clove, wild blackberry, raspberry and spice.
It is a 'ready to drink now' wine.
This is a fine wine to cellar, but it should be enjoyed fresh for its charming, vibrant fruitiness.
Primitivo has been called many things, but is known as the father of the Zinfandel grape, now so popular in California.
In recent years, DNA studies at the University of California at Davis show that the Zinfandel grape is the same as the Primitivo grape grown in southeastern Italy's Puglia region.
When Austin Goheen, a professor at UC Davis visited Italy in 1967, he observed how wine made from Primitivo reminded him of Zinfandel.
Others also made the association about that time.
Primitivo was brought to California in 1968; ampelographers confirmed it identical to Zinfandel in 1972, and the first wine was made from the vines in 1975 which also suggested that they were identical.
The same year PhD student Wade Wolfe showed that the two varieties had identical isozyme fingerprints.
Local rules are slowly catching up with the DNA verification, but have become bogged down in trade disputes.
The European Union accepted Zinfandel as a synonym for Primitivo in January 1999, which means that Italian Primitivo can be labeled as Zinfandel in the USA and any other country that identify EU labeling laws.
The Italians have taken lead of these rules and shipped Primitivo wines to the US labeled as Zinfandels, with the approval of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.