Winemaker Notes
Luminous ruby red, dense and weighty in the glass. Very complex on the nose, with initial hints of wild berries and dry flowers and then tertiary notes of bark, tobacco, and licorice. The palate is characterized by balance and softness that give this wine the elegance and approachability to drink.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A delicate and elegant Taurasi with quite a soft, ripe and enticing nose, offering red and black berries and a whiff of sweet vanilla. Full palate with tight, fine-grained tannins, coated in luxurious ripe fruit and vanilla. Still tight, but silky and very drinkable now. Delicious, in fact, but should age well for a while yet. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Inviting aromas of black-skinned berries, leather and underbrush emerge from the glass. The savory palate offers black plum, cocoa and tobacco alongside taut, polished tannins. Drink through 2031.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Di Meo 2013 Taurasi Riserva Vigna Olmo is a full-bodied and thickly concentrated expression of Aglianico that shows extreme richness, lots of texture, fiber and a very ripe, heavy and oak-enriched style. There is a lot of fruit and phenolic weight here, making the wine specific to a pairing of grilled meats or piquant aged cheese. You need a heavy food to break apart the richness of this very extracted wine.
Making its home in the mountainous southern Italy, Aglianico is a bold red variety that is late to ripen and often spends until November on the vine. It thrives in Campania as the exclusive variety in the age-worthy red wine called Taurasi. Aglianico also has great success in the volcanic soils of Basilicata where it makes the robust, Aglianico del Vulture. Somm Secret—The name “Aglianico” bears striking resemblance to Ellenico, the Italian word for "Greek," but no evidence shows it has Greek ancestry. However, it first appeared in Italy around an ancient Greek colony located in present-day Avellino, Campania.
A winemaking renaissance is underfoot in Campania as more and more small, artisan and family-run wineries redefine their style with vineyard improvements and cellar upgrades. The region boasts a cool Mediterranean climate with extreme coastal, as well as high elevation mountain terroirs. It is cooler than one might expect in Campania; the region usually sees some of the last harvest dates in Italy.
Just south of Mount Vesuvio, the volcanic and sandy soils create aromatic and fresh reds based on Piedirosso and whites, made from Coda di Volpe and Falanghina. Both reds and whites go by the name, Lacryma Christi, meaning the "tears of Christ." South of Mount Vesuvio, along the Amalfi Coast, the white varieties of Falanghina and Biancolella make fresh, flirty, mineral-driven whites, and the red Piedirosso and Sciasinoso vines, which cling to steeply terraced coastlines, make snappy and ripe red wines.
Farther inland, as hills become mountains, the limestone soil of Irpinia supports the whites Fiano di Avellino, Falanghina and Greco di Tufo as well as the most-respected red of the south, Aglianico. Here the best and most age-worthy examples come from Taurasi.
Farther north and inland near the city of Benevento, the Taburno region also produces Aglianico of note—called Aglianico del Taburno—on alluvial soils. While not boasting the same heft as Taurasi, these are also reliable components of any cellar.