Winemaker Notes
Serpico is ruby red with a complex bouquet of cherry jam, sweet spices, licorice, coffee and cacao. Incredibly balanced and structured, it has a spicy minerality and a long, pleasant finish of toast and spice.
Excellent with red meats, the finest poultry, game and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The outstanding 2010 Irpinia Aglianico Serpico is Aglianico from a pre-phylloxera vineyard that sees 18 months of medium toast oak. This vintage reveals an impressive sense of balance and inner harmony with dark fruit tones that are enhanced by bright accents of cherry and dried blueberry. Extra focus and intensity is achieved thanks to the dusty mineral shadings that give pretty contours to the plump fruit. There are distant endnotes of crushed white pepper as well. The tannins offer both firmness and texture. This is a beautiful expression of Aglianico.
Rating: 95+ -
Wine Enthusiast
Made with century-old, ungrafted vines, this structured red offers aromas of mature black plum, dark spice, tobacco and a whiff of blue flower. The generous, enveloping palate doles out layers of juicy black cherry, blackberry, anise, cinnamon and clove framed in densely packed but ripe tannins. Give it time to unwind and fully develop. Drink after 2020–2030. Cellar Selection.
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Wine Spectator
The black currant, olive tapenade, underbrush and melted licorice notes are well-knit and creamy on the palate of this fresh, full-bodied red, which is elegant and harmonious, though the supple tannins provide definition throughout and grip on the lasting, graphite-laced finish. Aglianico. Drink now through 2020.
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.