Over two nights at Teddington and Richmond Fliss led an exploration of ten wines from regions in Italy that don’t get the attention they deserve. Tim being in South America the mice were able to play and we tasted a great lineup of ten wines.
It’s tempting to consider anywhere south of Tuscany is going to be too hot to produce quality wines, and our tasting thoroughly dispelled this prejudice. High altitudes, volcanic soils and sea breezes all contribute to wines of great freshness and complexity, and indigenous grape varieties provide a wide palate of flavours and styles.
Lazio, the province of Rome. is home to Frascati, which we agreed was a wine of our youth (“University”) wine, with vague memories of light, inoffensive (and cheap) stuff. The Pallavicini family demonstrated to us that Frascati can be rather good! A simple, fresh wines, with plenty of lovely fruit – perfect for summer quaffing.
In complete contrast, Lazio also provided a white wine made from Marurano, an extremely rare grape variety that has only been recognised as a specific variety in the last 20 years. “Interesting” probably sums this wine up: a lot of wine making (9 months on lees, 24 months in tank before release) and some bottle age (2019 vintage) certainly produced a wine of balance and complexity, but we struggled to define anything that stood out – and as the most expensive wine we tasted that evening I think it will be a hard sell!
Campania is the region surrounding Naples, and virtually all its wines are made from grapes grown either on volcanic soils, or soils which have liberal doses of volcanic ash blown onto them at regular intervals. Greco di Tufo is one of the most famous DOCGs in the region, and the Vesevo wine we tasted did not disappoint: complex flavours, oily texture and a super finish. Its stablemate made from Falanghina, a less prestigious variety, also went down well – fresh fruit, zippy acidity and a lovely finish. However, without doubt, the knockout wines of the evening in terms of quality/price balance were from the Pipoli co-op, which is run by the Fantini group, based near Mount Vulture, a ancient (and inactive) volcano that sits on the border between Campania, Lazio and Basilicata. Their Bianco, a blend of Greco and Fiano was bright, packed with lovely fruit and a great texture, while their Rosso, from the DOC Aglianico de Vulture was a simply fabulous expression of the Aglianico grape variety. This late ripening, tannic variety needs expert wine making to ensure its tannins are soft and elegant, and Pipoli delivered this in spades – at an amazing price!
The DOC Vesuvio is home to a blast from the past for some of us – Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio. Whether the ‘Tears of Christ’ relate to those shed in the Garden of Gesthemane, or to the crevasses scoured down the sides of the Vesuvius volcano, the name is attached to many wines from this DOC (and seems to pop up in literature from Dumas to Bradbury). We tried a red, made from Piedirosso (literally: ‘red feet’) with a bit of Aglianico, and it was a powerful vibrant wine packed with red and black fruit and smoky flavours and quite a few tannins.
In complete contrast the DOC Cirò Rosso, from Calabria (the toe of Italy) was almost ghostly! 2018 vintage, very faded in colour and very evolved flavours (dried fruits, leaves, leather), it was a wine to consider and savour rather than glug (particularly given it too packed some tannins).
Our final wines came from Puglia, for years the source of ripe powerful grapes that were used (allegedly) to beef up wines in famous regions in the north of Italy. Tim had led tours to Puglia in 2016, so there were some memories in the room! The Nero di Troia from Canace was for me the top wine of the night – immensely complex flavours, fabulous acidity and elegant tannins, at a very restrained 13.5% abv, while the Fatalone Primitivo Reserva at 16% delivered everything one expects from this iconic variety (aka Zinfandel in California) – dense black fruit, spices, ripe tannins and a great finish.
Probably the most surprising ‘find’ of both evenings was one of our quaffing wines, which demonstrated the ability of southern Italian wines to age. In the corner of the cellar when we moved house, we had found a case of 2015 vintage Negroamaro from A Mano, who we visited in Puglia in 2016 (read about it here). I presented it with a bit of a health warning but apart from a big dose of sediment that ended up in some glasses it was fabulous. The current vintages we can source is 2020, and if anyone has a corner of their cellar/cupboard that they might want to leave it in for a couple of years, it could be worth a punt! It’s on the list of wines we have tasted, and available from Tim (as are several of the other wines).
For details of the wines, please visit the Wines we have tasted page.
