Today’s wine outperformed some more-expensive, more-famous competition at an Italian wine tasting hosted by SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch. He recounts that below, along with the details behind this southern Italian showstopper.
Back in November, the SommSelect team had the honor of pouring wines and hosting some educational tastings at the Napa Valley Film Festival. Ian Cauble led a blind tasting seminar, while I took the crowd out of California briefly for a tour of “Italy’s Noble Red Wines.” I’ll wager that some of my peers would question my putting this wine in a lineup that included the likes of Brunello di Montalcino and Barolo. I questioned it, initially, too: There are more prestigious appellations that feature southern Italy’s Aglianico grape, such as Taurasi in Campania and Monte Vulture in Basilicata, and since it’s hard enough to get people to accept Aglianico as a ‘noble’ variety on par with Sangiovese and Nebbiolo, maybe I should have gone with one of those. But nope, I brought a $24 Aglianico-Piedirosso blend from Mount Vesuvius bearing the Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio DOC. People of a certain age (as in, mine) may associate Lacryma Christi—made in both white and red versions—with cheap, pizza parlor wine. Well, this Villa Dora wine is indeed inexpensive, but there’s nothing ‘cheap’ about it. Not only did it hang with its ostensibly posher table-mates, it emerged as a crowd (and my) favorite. This is a bold, complex, cellar-worthy, seriously under-priced Italian red—easily the most pleasant surprise of my recent wine-drinking adventures and one I sincerely hope finds a wider audience. This means you, of course: You need to try this!
Some subscribers may recall that we offered the white version of Villa Dora’s Lacryma Christi earlier this year, but the story behind its fanciful name merits repeating: “Lacryma Christi” means “Christ’s Tears,” and refers to wines grown in the volcanic ash of Mount Vesuvius—soils which, according to legend, were fertilized by Jesus’ tears as he wept over the fall of Lucifer from heaven. As I’ve noted before, it’s tempting to dismiss these wines as novelties, and there are instances, including on Vesuvius, when the wines are just that—historically significant but otherwise not especially interesting. But the Ambrosio family of Villa Dora, whose organically farmed vineyards sit within the national park that rings the base of the volcano, take Lacryma Christi seriously, and it shows.
Villa Dora is located on the eastern slopes of Vesuvius in the village of Terzigno, not far from the ruins of Pompeii, and this Lacryma Christi Rosso is crafted from 80% Aglianico and 20% Piedirosso that is aged in large oak puncheons for about a year before release. I love the way importer Oliver McCrum describes the soils in the Villa Dora vineyards: “The soil, ground-up pumice really, looks like black Grape-Nuts, and the wines are strikingly flavorful and distinctive,” McCrum writes. “There is no known scientific reason why certain minerals in the soil would affect the flavors of the wines grown in that soil, but I have to think there's a connection.”
And I have to concur. There is a palpable minerality to this wine that underpins the bold, black fruit (not incidentally, this wine is called “Gelsonero,” which means “black mulberry” and is an apt descriptor, I think). In the glass, the wine is a deep, nearly opaque ruby with hints of black and purple, with aromas of Amarena cherries, blackberry, pomegranate, violet, flint, smoke, tar, and charred meat. Medium-plus in body and showing some firm Aglianico tannins, it’s best to give this wine a rough decant about 45 minutes before serving at 60-65 degrees in large Bordeaux stems; and yet, unlike most $24 bottles of southern Italian red wine, I would absolutely lay this wine down for 3-5 years. It’s a distinctive, impressive, place-expressive wine and one that will show best alongside a fatty protein it can sink its teeth into. It’s also, despite its hot-climate, volcanic origins, a perfect cold-weather warmer. Get some! Cheers!
— D.L.
