![]() ![]() His account of the differences between Aglianico from Taurasi, Benevento and Caserta (where Falerno wines come from) is very insightful and he also tells us why the white wines of Campania (Falanghina, Greco di Tufo and Fiano) are so exceptional. ![]() In this episode Salvatore tells us about the history but also gives us a marvellous overview of the grapes of Campania, both red and white. There’s lots more about Falerno del Massico in The Wine Beat article -it is linked here! With this small but precious start, the Avallone family embarked on a journey to create a modern expression of the greatest wine of ancient Rome, the Falerno del Massico. ![]() The friends discovered 15 vines – 10 red (Aglianico and Piedirosso) and 5 white (Falanghina). But the phylloxera epidemic of the late 1800’s had wiped out the vines – all but a very few. He and his friends from the Dept of Agriculture at the University of Naples conducted an “ampelographical” study of the vines in all the small farms in the Caserta region where the famed Falernum wines had been grown. His father, Francesco Paolo, was a lawyer, a lifelong student of the Roman Empire and a professor of Roman Law at the University of Naples. They also began to modernise their cellar techniques and started bringing into the traditional-minded Aglianico heartland some of Italy’s best and most up-to-date consulting oenologists – notably Riccardo Cotarella, who has scored fantastic successes with estates such as Feudi di San Gregorio, Villa Matilde, and Montevetrano.Salvatore Avallone’s father created Villa Matilde in the 1960’s after spending over 10 years of painstaking research to locate and identify the few remaining grape vines of the original strain that made the famous Falernum wine of Roman times. It’s probably not stretching the truth to say that for a few decades in the late 20th century, those two accounted for 90% of the Aglianico wines on the Italian market and 99% of the Aglianico wines sold abroad – the wines’ commercial and critical success gradually encouraged other producers to try a similar path.Īided and abetted by clonal studies undertaken in cooperation with the University of Naples, growers old and new began to renovate their vineyards, a process still ongoing and likely to continue for some time yet. The wines of two of those areas always commanded respect within Italy and among a handful of connoisseurs abroad: Aglianico del Vulture, of which D’Angelo was the major producer, and Taurasi, of which the Avellino-based Mastroberardino was the most important producer. ![]() After phylloxera, the grape survived in small quantities in more or less isolated areas, principally around Rionero del Vulture in Basilicata, around Avellino, Benevento, Caserta and Salerno in Campania. For centuries it has proliferated but was almost destroyed by phylloxera and was on the verge of extinction until my family acted.’īefore phylloxera, Aglianico was one of the most widely planted varieties throughout the south of Italy. ‘Aglianico has been grown in Campania for thousands of years. The Mastroberardino family, led by the scholarly Antonio Mastroberardino (who considers himself as much an archaeologist of vines as a winemaker), preserved and propagated the species, which may be the oldest of Campanian vines.
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