Winemaker Notes
This was a superb and memorable vintage with perfect synthesis between grape varietal & terroir. These two main characters fully reveal themselves in this refined and deep wine. It shows extraordinary rich and beautiful intensity. Dark berries, black cherry, leather, spice and wonderful minerality merge to create a wine that reflects the complexity of this special region.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The immediate freshness of the nose disguises the hidden depths of mineral complexity from dry to wet stone, which spreads to the palate and prop up the plum and blackberry-conserve fruit character. Then there’s some dried lime-like citrus, too. Full-to medium-bodied with lightly firm tannins and clean minerals on the long finish. So tempting even now, but this will age beautifully.
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose has the weight of dark chocolate, coffee and earth, plus the energy of black cherries and blackberries for balance. On the palate, snappy-skinned plums accentuate a note of blackberries which are ripening, but still tart, while a finish of soil and bitter dark chocolate creates a cohesive feel. Acid zips around tannins which are dense and substantial, but approachable.
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Wine Spectator
A gorgeous Taurasi, with an up-front burst of ripe fruit -- black cherry, wild strawberry and black plum reduction -- expanding on the palate and transitioning to a savory range of minerally stone and smoke accents. Reveals Mediterranean scrub, dried flowers and milled pepper, with fine, supple tannins swathed in the silky texture, while fresh acidity carries the flavor profile on the lasting finish. Drink now through 2032.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With Aglianico fruit harvested from a two-hectare site at a high 700 meters in elevation, the Tenute Capaldo 2017 Taurasi Riserva Gulielmus offers a faithful reading of the grape. This full-bodied red is soft and luscious on the mid-palate, yet it ends on an austere note, thanks to its powerful and angular construction. Plummy dark fruit is followed by pressed rose, sweet gardening soil and toasted spice. Thanks to that high-altitude fruit, you would not peg this as a hot vintage.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2017 Tenute Capaldo Gulielmus Taurasi Riserva has excellent oomph on the palate. TASTING NOTES: This wine offers aromas and flavors of black fruits, licorice, and savory spices. Enjoy it with grilled pork kebabs. (Tasted: June 7, 2024, San Francisco, CA)
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.