Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Here's another new Riserva added to the Mastroberardino portfolio of fine wines. The 2016 Taurasi Riserva Stiléma is a heritage wine or a reinterpretation of a traditional wine that pays homage to some of the great bottles of yesteryear with shorter maceration times for moderate phenolic extraction and the use of neutral French and Slavonian oak that prize elegance over power. This streamlined and polished wine reveals dark fruit, cardamom, cured tobacco and tertiary aromas of licorice and tar that are just beginning to show. However, despite the wine's age, you taste the transparency of the fruit: pulp, skins, stems and all.
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Vinous
The 2016 Taurasi Riserva Stilèma is a profoundly sensual wine. Keep the glass swirling to unlock depths of sour cherry and red plum, complicated by hints of spice cake and a dusting of clove. It’s seamlessly silky and suave, with a textural wave of polished blackberries and currants underscored by saline minerals. There’s a density within, neatly balanced with vibrant acidity, as chiseled tannins slowly take hold. The 2016 finishes with decent length yet a bit backward today, ending with savory herbal and sour citrus nuances. In a very short time, the Taurasi Riserva Stilèma has established itself as one of the top wines in the Mastroberardino portfolio.
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James Suckling
This is a very refined expression of aglianico with clean red-fruit character. With aeration, additional notes of pressed flowers, scorched orange rind and dark chocolate come through to create a complex whole. Medium- to full-bodied with well-integrated tannins and a long finish. Delicious. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Fresh and elegant, this well-meshed red layers taut, fine tannins with a ripe core of cherry and cranberry puree, a streak of smoke-tinged minerality and accents of tea leaves and woodsy spices that echo on the finish. Drink now through 2028.
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.