I honestly can’t think of the last wine that lodged itself in my memory like this one did. There have been others in the past, and there will be others in the future, but for now, this 2013 Taurasi is the heavyweight champ of my wine-drinking life and isn’t likely to relinquish the belt anytime soon. Yes, it’s that good: incredibly powerful, hauntingly complex, and just now beginning to reveal itself after several years of bottle age.
This is the kind of Taurasi that earned the region its “Barolo of the south” nickname—a wine that leaves no doubt that its featured grape variety, Aglianico, belongs right alongside Nebbiolo and Sangiovese on Italy’s native-grape mountaintop. But, given that the Taurasi DOCG is still playing catch-up to some of the vaunted red-wine appellations of the north, its price remains within reach. Stylistically, Molettieri’s “Cinque Querce” is more a Barolo-meets-Bordeaux with a few more twists besides: Depending on your experience with Aglianico and Taurasi, you may have a hard time placing it but there’s no doubt whatsoever that it’s a stunner. We’re talking lights-out, mic-drop, tell-all-your-friends red wine, with 10+ years of evolution still ahead of it (at a minimum). Run, don’t walk!
Although Sicily’s Mount Etna has lately stolen some of the spotlight, Taurasi is still the premier red wine appellation of the Italian south. It covers a relatively small cluster of hills in the Irpinia region of central Campania—about 50 kilometers east of Naples but, terroir-wise, 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. One of Aglianico’s distinguishing features is its nearly unrivaled concentration of anthocyanins—the phenolic compounds that intensify color pigmentation and tannin.
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For the longest time, the Taurasi region had one major player—the famed Mastroberardino estate—and few others. For all its history, it was a seriously under-developed wine zone. Salvatore Molettieri didn’t begin bottling wines from his estate until 1988, but in the time since, he has become one of the most acclaimed producers in the zone. Along with his son, Giovanni, a trained enologist, Molettieri now farms 13 hectares of vineyards in the village of Montemarano, including the “Cinque Querce” (“five oaks”) vineyard, which reaches to 550 meters of elevation. The cool microclimate and limestone/clay soils allow for a long, slow maturation of the late-ripening Aglianico, the harvest of which can sometimes extend into November.
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And, as lovers of Aglianico know very well, this is a variety in which everything is turned up to 11: color, flavor, tannin, acid, body. The 2013 Cinque Querce was fermented in a 50%-50% mix of wooden vats and stainless steel tanks, followed by 36 months in a mix of large-format casks (30-, 50-, and 80-hectoliter) and French oak barriques. Then there was six months of aging before release, meaning this wine first went on sale sometime in 2017; it was likely an inky beast back then, but oh, what a difference a few years can make!
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In the glass, this ’13 is a nearly opaque ruby-black, with some slight oranging at the rim. Powerful aromas of black raspberry, Morello cherry, pomegranate, leather, tobacco, wild herbs, graphite, cocoa powder, and forest floor carry over to the dense, full-bodied palate. Aglianico’s notorious tannins have softened somewhat, allowing the saturated dark fruit to show through, along with accent notes of “secondary” aromas brought on by time in bottle: woodsy, floral, spice-box notes that tax one’s descriptive abilities. Keep going back to this and you’ll keep finding something new, and despite its powerful structure you won’t find yourself weighed down at all—especially if you pair it with a hearty winter meal and serve it at a cool 60 degrees in large Bordeaux stems. With winter fast approaching, this is the kind of red I’m craving, and once you’ve had a taste of it, you’ll be keen to open a second bottle a.s.a.p. Decant it a good 45 minutes before service, pair it with braised lamb shanks, and get ready to be blown away. Let’s make some memories! Cheers!
