As fate would have it, I’m writing this offer in Italy, not long after tasting a bunch of wines from Taurasi as part of a wine judging at the annual VinItaly wine fair. Those who know and love the Aglianico grape understand that tasting “a bunch” of Taurasi wines can be taxing, to say the least: These are some of Italy’s most powerful red wines, fully deserving of their “Barolos of the south” nickname. And while there were some good wines in the flight I just tasted, none came close to Mastroberardino’s 2011 “Radici,” which still looms large in my memory a good month after tasting it.
In fact, I was using that memory as a reference point for the wines I was evaluating in the judging—which is about as strong an endorsement as I could give it. This is one of Southern Italy’s benchmark reds and one of very few bottles from this part of the world found in the savviest collectors’ wine cellars. Today’s 2011 is a brooding powerhouse which, if history is any guide, will continue to flex its muscles well into its old age. If any wine is going to bring more people into the Aglianico tent—a mission I’ve been on for quite a while now—this one is it!
And if you are already a member of the Aglianico fan club, it may well have been this wine that did it for you: First produced in 1986, this is Taurasi’s most famous label and Mastroberardino is unequivocally the region’s “first family.” Their winemaking operation was first established in the 1750s, and the family remained the dominant force in Campanian wine for generations; these days, there are scores of ambitious Taurasi labels to compete with “Radici,” but for a long time, it was one of very few wines from the zone attracting international attention.
Even today, as southern Italy’s wines have grown in prestige and Taurasi—long nicknamed “the Barolo of the south”—is recognized as an important terroir, it remains under-explored and overlooked by the “fine wine” market. As today’s wine demonstrates, to ignore this place and grape is to miss out on one of the most powerful and distinctive red wine experiences around. Taurasi is the namesake village of a relatively small cluster of hills in the Irpinia region of central Campania—about 50 kilometers east of Naples but, physically speaking, a world away. Irpinia is the start of the climb into the Campanian Apennines, with vineyard altitudes typically averaging around 400 meters in thickly forested hillside sites (chestnut groves are another key feature of the region). The soils are a mix of calcareous (i.e. limestone) marls and volcanic deposits, and it’s the latter that the great Aglianico-based reds of the south really speak to: There’s a brooding, smoky, deeply mineral structure to Aglianico that can be downright ferocious, more forbidding in some cases than young Barolo wines from Piedmont. There’s no doubt in my mind that Aglianico, whose origins remain unclear—some believe it arrived from Greece, others think it’s indigenous to the region—is one of Italy’s top three “noble” varieties alongside Nebbiolo (Piedmont) and Sangiovese (Tuscany).
As in Barolo, Taurasi is subject to minimum aging requirements by law. “Radici” is classified as a riserva and exceeds those requirements significantly, spending 30 months in a mixture of French oak barrels (20% new) and larger casks, then three years in bottle before release. Sourced from a high-elevation single vineyard (not named on the bottle), today’s wine shares similarities not just with Barolo but certain Gran Reserva Riojas as well. Effectively the “current” release of Radici Riserva, today’s 2011 has had time to knit together and develop considerable complexity, and yet it is still youthful and poised for a long life. In the glass, it has a characteristically dark, inky hue with hints of garnet and orange at the rim, with smoky, mineral aromas highly evocative of volcanic soils. Scents of ripe blackberries, currants, and mulberries mingle with intensely savory notes of espresso, grilled meat, leather, pencil lead, and tobacco. It is full-bodied and dense on the palate, with forceful (but maturing) tannins and lots of freshness lending grip. Given an hour in a decanter, it opens up very nicely, but this is a wine that will show its best with food—it’s not a flashy, sweet, “cocktail” style of red but rather a resolutely serious, soil-driven wine that will continue to mature for 20+ years. If enjoying a bottle now, treat it to that long aeration time and serve it at 60 degrees in large Bordeaux stems. Serve it with a fatty cut of meat well-charred on the grill and you’ll have a delicious symbiosis of flavors and textures on your hands. You won’t soon forget it!
