Winemaker Notes
Enjoy with red meats, duck and hearty vegetarian dishes.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2010 Taurasi is a delightful expression that hits all the high marks. The quality of fruit is ripe and extra generous with blackberry marmalade, chocolate, tar, licorice, pressed flower and spice. The oak element is evident but feels well integrated within the general richness of the wine's fruit density and overall concentration. This is one of Feudi's nicest Taurasi expressions thanks to the smooth and seamless way the wine wraps thickly over the palate. You get some herbal tones on the close with bay leaf, soya and Asian spice.
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James Suckling
Extremely beautiful aromas of ripe aglianico grape with black pepper, cedar, mahogany and tar. It's full-bodied, with chewy tannins and a juicy finish. Wish it was a little less extracted in style. Better in 2016.
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Wine Spectator
Dense and chewy, with bright acidity enlivening the dark, brambly berry, black licorice, dried marjoram and dried black cherry flavors. Finely balanced, presenting a lasting, minerally finish. Drink now through 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe black plum, sour cherry, blue flower, black pepper, clove and cinnamon all meld together in the glass. This is still a very young Aglianco, with bracing tannins, but it should unwind nicely over the next few years. Drink after 2018.
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.