Just when you think Italy has run out of ways to surprise you, along comes another delicious and utterly unique value like today’s wine from Calabria. Calabria is the “toe” of the Italian boot, a mountainous peninsula flanked by the Mediterranean and Ionian Seas, and the only wine zone of consequence is Cirò, situated along the region’s Ionian coastline. Some Cirò wines are well-known here, but otherwise, Calabrian wine is a mystery to most.
Malaspina’s “Pellaro” not only puts a different part of Calabria on the map, it’s a reminder of how big our wine world has become. We’ve offered a steady stream of wines made from native and/or non-traditional grapes, from far-flung places, whose quality transcends the curiosity factor: There was the Vranac from a monastery in Bosnia-Herzegovina; the Kékfrankos (a.k.a. Blaufränkisch) from Hungary; and the Albariño from Monterey, to name a few. “Pellaro,” named for its Calabrian village of origin, is a blend of Nerello Cappuccio and Nocera, both varieties having long ago spilled over to the mainland from Sicily. It’s grown in vineyards just a few kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea, near the southernmost tip of the Italian mainland. Look east and there’s Mount Etna in the distance, smoldering away, and Pellaro shares not only the grapes but the energy and soil character that distinguishes Etna reds. If you enjoy going to places you’ve never been, this one is so worth the trip!
There’s part of me that also appreciates the journey this wine has taken: Not only is the village of Pellaro remote, Calabria is Italy’s poorest region—physically, it’s about 90% mountains and is badly underserved in terms of infrastructure (railways, highways, etc.). Its economy is still predominantly agricultural, but most of its young people move away as soon as they can, looking for work not just in northern Italy but elsewhere in Europe. Although the region was one of the first landing points for the ancient Greeks (referenced on Pellaro’s label), and the heart of what was once known as Enotria (‘land of wine’), Calabria produces very little wine relative to other Italian regions. Olive and bergamot citrus groves are much more prevalent than vines.
Given all this, the four young Malaspina sisters—Domenica, Caterina, Irene, and Patrizia—are making serious wine in very challenging business conditions, and I respect that. Their father, Consolato, began making wines back in 1967, but the Malaspina label was a local phenomenon until recently. The winery itself is in the coastal town of Melito di Porto Salvo, which has the distinction of being the southernmost town of mainland Italy, but the vineyards are in two villages in opposite directions—Pellaro, up the coast on the way to Reggio Calabria, and Palizzi, in the foothills of the Aspromonte mountains to the east. The climate is, obviously, Mediterranean, and the soils in Malaspina’s three hectares of vineyards in Pellaro—situated just a kilometer inland on slopes overlooking the sea—are a mix of marl, clay, and volcanic material. The vines are bush-trained (‘alberello,’ meaning ‘little tree,’ in Italian), which is typical in the arid, sunny, windy southern regions—the compact structure of the bush-trained vines enables the canopy of leaves to protect the grape bunches from excessive sun or wind damage.
The grape blend in the 2013 Pellaro is 60% Nerello Cappuccio—the darker-toned companion to Nerello Mascalese in the wines of Mount Etna—and 40% Nocera—also a variety more readily associated with Sicily and Etna. Yet while the fruit component and appearance of the wine is indeed dark, the wine has a brightness and lift reminiscent of the best Etna wines. A lot of southern Italian reds are richer, rounder, even a little “cooked” and syrupy, but this is truly a different animal: In the glass, it’s a deep ruby moving to garnet and pink at the rim, with heady aromas of Morello cherry, blackberry, black raspberry, bergamot orange, wild herbs, damp violets, tobacco, and a hint of toffee and baking spice from eight months’ aging in oak barriques. It is medium-plus in body, with a still-firm tannic structure for a wine with several years of bottle age, suggesting that it has many years of positive evolution ahead of it. Aside from the Etna comparison, the wine reminds me of some Provençal reds and has some of the cedary, cigar-box notes of Left Bank Bordeaux. Decant it about 45 minutes before serving at 60-65 degrees in Bordeaux stems and pair it with something hearty and a little saucy, like the attached recipe for braised lamb shanks. It’s a pairing you might well find in Calabria, should you ever make it there—I know I’m long overdue for a return. Salute!
