Italian Wine For Dummies by Ed McCarthy

Author:Ed McCarthy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published: 2010-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

The Wines of Southern Italy

In This Chapter

Campania’s untapped potential

Sturdy reds from Puglia

Basilicata’s Aglianico del Vulture

The rustic wines of Calabria

Southern Italy has a proud wine history. The area has produced wine for over 4,000 years; in 2,000 B.C., when Phoenician traders arrived in what is today the region of Apulia, a local wine industry was already thriving! The Greeks later dubbed Southern Italy, “The Land of Wine.”

Within the last decade this area has begun a long-awaited wine renaissance, producing fine wines from quality-conscious producers.

Campania: Revival Begins

Campania sits along Italy’s western coast, on the Tyrrhenian Sea (see Figure 1-1). More than half of Campania’s terrain consists of hillsides. The climate is mainly hot and dry near the sea, but can be cool and rainy, especially in the autumn, in the inland Apennines.

Just ten short years ago, more than half of the region’s DOC wine came from one producer! That producer, Mastroberardino, is still the leader in DOC wine production, but today several others have finally joined the ranks of quality-conscious firms willing to tap Campania’s tremendous potential. One of their key assets is a red grape variety, Aglianico (ah-l’yee-ah-nee-co), which has proven to be one of the great, noble grapes of Italy; also, two white varieties, Fiano and Greco di Tufo, make some of the very best, long-lived white wines in the country. It’s safe to say that in a few years, Campania will be regarded as one of Italy’s “hot” wine regions.

The best of Campania’s DOC wines can be grouped geographically into three areas:

The Irpinia hills of Avellino, in central Campania

The coastal hills and islands around Naples

The northern hills of the region

The wines of Avellino

Campania’s three greatest wines come from the Irpinia hills around the city of Avellino, the capital of the Avellino province: the red Taurasi, and two DOC whites, Fiano di Avellino and Greco di Tufo.

Until recently, the only winery that mattered in Avellino was Mastroberardino, owned by a family that has produced wine for about 300 years. Since the 1970s, Antonio Mastroberardino has been responsible for dramatic improvements not only in the wines of Avellino, but also in the wines of the coastal hills area.

But in the past decade, Feudi di San Gregorio, another very good, but smaller, producer, whose consulting enologist is the renowned Riccardo Cotarella, began producing wines that challenged Mastroberardino’s monopoly.

Taurasi

Mastroberardino’s 1968 Taurasi Riserva won so much acclaim worldwide that it brought this massive red wine — and its noble grape variety, Aglianico — attention it had never before received. Taurasi (touw-rah-see) is a wine that demands aging, not unlike the other great Italian reds — Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello. In good vintages, this complex, powerful, and tannic wine is at its best after 15 to 20 years.

Taurasi’s vineyard area is the hills around the community of Taurasi and 16 others, northeast of Avellino. The wine must be at least 85 percent Aglianico, with up to 15 percent other red varieties, but in practice, most of the better Taurasi wines are 100 percent Aglianico.

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