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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Jeb Dunnuck
More elegant than the Taurasi, with awesome notes of black cherries, currants, toasted spices, and hints of barrique, the 2011 Serpico is full-bodied, beautifully concentrated and layered, with both freshness and richness. This is a beautifully ripe, layered and elegant wine that shines on all accounts. This cuvee comes from a single vineyard of ungrafted Aglianico and should continue drinking beautifully for at least another decade.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Slightly hotter in terms of alcohol, the 2011 Irpinia Aglianico Serpico is a powerful and lasting expression of Aglianico from a warm vintage. Big fruit intensity is followed by cinnamon, nutmeg, crushed clove and cured meat. Similar intensity is shown in the mouth where the wine is opulently shaped and generous in terms of extraction and persistency. It closes with ripe fruit flavors and soft tannins.
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Wine Spectator
A dense and tarry red set on a medium- to full-bodied frame, offering a creamy mix of herbed black olive, licorice string, sun-dried black cherry and fragrant smoke notes that linger on the firm finish. Drink now through 2026. 1,250 cases made.
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.