Winemaker Notes
Feudi di San Gregorio Serpico is a ruby red color. A complete bouquet of cherry jam, sweet spices, licorice, coffee and cacao. Balanced in the mouth with background of toast and spice, minerality with a long, pleasant finish.
Excellent with roasted red meats, the finest poultry, game and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
Tart red cherry and sweet tobacco perfume the glass as an intricate lacing of oregano, thyme, and sage integrates with linear minerality. Tension and high-acid structure form a persona tempered by porcini mushroom, balsamic, and black olive. Notes of black cherry and iron soil are coaxed out on the midpalate, giving way to a shadow of animale on the earthy finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
The savory nose features the weathered sophistication of leather, cigars, soil and pepper, while undertones of oregano, tomatoes and cherries provide a burst of energy. On the brighter palate, the cherry element is emphasized by raspberries, but a savory balance persists. Acid crackles around gleaming yet firm tannins.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Available in a dark, frosted bottle, the Feudi di San Gregorio 2016 Irpinia Aglianico Serpico has taken the proverbial turn toward tertiary aromas, or at least an initial turn, showing pressed blackberry and blackcurrant surrounded by tarry smoke, campfire ash and toasted spice. The 2016 vintage will be remembered for its power and its inner elegance, and those are exactly the traits that have carried this wine so far, and that will continue to shape its bottle-aging trajectory. There are dusty volcanic tones on the close, and the tannins are dry over a mid-weight mouthfeel.
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Wine Spectator
Firm and minerally, with a core of fine, dense tannins wrapped in flavors of crushed black and red cherry, iron, earth, tobacco and dark chocolate. Fresh and graceful on the palate despite its tight mesh, this opens slowly and lingers on the well-spiced finish. Drink now through 2034. 1,000 cases imported.
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James Suckling
A lovely nose of ripe red berries with sweet vanilla and chocolate. Medium-bodied with firm tannins and good acidity which brightens the black and red-cherry character. Good balance and length. A little straightforward this year.
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.