The two most important red wine appellations on the southern Italian peninsula are Taurasi, in central Campania, and Aglianico del Vulture, in neighboring Basilicata. Both regions showcase the Aglianico variety in all its muscular, mineral, dark-fruited glory, and in the case of today’s Aglianico del Vulture from D’Angelo, we get a rare chance to see just how well these wines can age. But since we’re deep in the Italian south rather than in Tuscany or Piedmont, the price of admission is astonishingly low. I’d rank D’Angelo’s “Caselle” among the greatest wines of the Italian south, and today’s meaty 2012 lives up to its billing:
It is just now starting to broaden and blossom, while still displaying the powerful tannic structure and inky color that characterizes Aglianico. I would love to get in on a tasting table next to some pricier wines from places like Cornas in the Rhône or Mendoza in Argentina, because I’m certain it would perform admirably. The D’Angelo family has been a fixture in Basilicata for nearly a century, farming vineyards on the slopes of Monte Vulture, the spent volcano that gifted them and their neighbors with cool, high-altitude vineyard sites rooted in mineral-packed volcanic soils. That soil imprint is readily evident in today’s ’12, just as it is in our favorite volcanic wines from around the world, whether it’s nearby Mount Etna or far-off Tenerife. Much like the back-vintage bottlings we’ve offered from Taurasi, “Caselle” is not just scandalously undervalued but poised to age another 10+ years. It is big, bold, and not to be missed!
When I first started traveling in Italy and studying its wines more than 20 years ago, D’Angelo was a regional benchmark, and it continues in that role today. If you were writing a wine list and wanted a single bottle to capture everything that makes this part of the world special, this wine would be a perfect choice. Wedged between Puglia (the “heel”) and Calabria (the “toe”) in southern Italy, Basilicata has historically been one of its poorest and least-traveled regions, meaning historic family wineries like D’Angelo have toiled in relative obscurity—despite having one of Italy’s noblest red grapes, and greatest terroirs, at its disposal.
When I first visited Basilicata, I quickly learned that “southern” Italy can mean many things. It is hardly uniform in either topography or climate, as Basilicata so dramatically illustrates. The region is almost entirely consumed by the Apennine mountains, with little slivers of coast on both the Mediterranean and Ionian seas. Its capital, Potenza, sits at the highest elevation of any regional capital in Italy. Monte Vulture is an extinct volcano in the northern reaches of the region, with vineyards that climb as high as 700 meters in some places, and as such this is a cool climate—providing the already late-ripening Aglianico with an extremely long growing season. It’s not uncommon for Aglianico del Vulture to be harvested in mid- or even late November (even later than Piedmont’s Nebbiolo in some instances).
Before Sicily’s Mount Etna and its Nerello Mascalese grape became a worldwide sensation, Aglianico from both Monte Vulture and Campania’s Taurasi were the southern Italian reds getting all the attention. D’Angelo was the stalwart—the first stop for intrepid wine writers visiting the region and the standard by which newer-arriving producers on the scene would be judged. Originally founded in the 1920s by Rocco D’Angelo, and now run by his grandchildren, Rocco and Emilia D’Angelo, this family estate currently farms 35 hectares of vineyards in this remote, incredibly picturesque part of southern Italy. The thickly forested Vulture volcano is long extinct, but its ashy remnants remain, along with a few deep-blue crater lakes near its summit.
The Caselle bottling is sourced from D’Angelo estate vineyards in the village of Barile, from vines that average 50 years of age, and its aging regimen is a long one, reminiscent of Gran Reserva Rioja or Brunello di Montalcino: It spends 24 months in concrete vessels, followed by another 24 months in barrels and a year in bottle before its initial release. Now with a few more years of bottle age under its belt, the wine is still showing plenty of youthful intensity. It is a pitch-perfect expression of Aglianico: dark-fruited and brooding, smoky, woodsy, stony, aromatically complex and utterly unique…everything I’ve come to expect from Monte Vulture’s dark, mineral-rich, rust-hued basalt soils.
In the glass, the 2012 Caselle is a deep, nearly opaque ruby moving to garnet at the rim, with explosive aromas of crushed blackberries, black cherries, violets, grilled herbs, espresso, tobacco, grilled meat, and pulverized black stones. On the palate, it has a brooding, forceful quality and some grip to the texture, so two serving suggestions are key to maximizing enjoyment: First, decant the wine a good 45 minutes before serving. Second, keep the temperature cool (60-ish degrees), which will de-emphasize the tannins and point up the beautiful dark fruit and florals. Serve it in Burgundy stems to accentuate its Barolo-like aromatic profile, give it a few vigorous swirls, and pair it with a meaty braise like the attached. If you can, try to lose a few bottles in a dark corner of your cellar—with an Aglianico of this quality, the payoff is huge. Enjoy!
