Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Gaglioppo showcases one of the region’s most important indigenous varieties. This harmonious, unoaked red possesses tons of candied, perfumed cherries and flowers in a mid-weight yet deeply flavored style. It’s all harmony and class here. This is a wonderful effort from Statti. Anticipated maturity: 2009-2012. Statti is one of a handful of producers in Calabria making interesting wines.
Gaglioppo likes warm and dry climates and elevation. Some of the better examples of Gaglioppo grow in Ciro, Calabria where high altitude protects the berries from the intense hot climate of the plains. It makes a dry, red wine expressive of wild berry, black plum, earth and violets. Somm Secret—If you like the reds of Mt. Etna in Sicily, you will like Gaglioppo. It is in fact a sibling of Mt. Etna’s Nerello Mascalese grape.
As the toe of Italy’s boot and closer in proximity to Sicily than any other mainland Italian region, Calabria holds much much in common with the island by way of climate, landscape and agriculture. Calabria’s principal red grape, Gaglioppo, is also a close relative of Sicily’s famous Nerello Mascalese.
Cirò, Calabria’s most valuable appellation, covers gently sloped hills on the Ionian Sea coast. Its wines are based on the indigenous red, Gaglioppo, and can be made as single varietal wines or blended with Cabernet or Merlot. Also of interest from Calabria is the red Maglioppo, likely a relative of Sangiovese. Whites here are made of Greco.