Aglianico's Unsung Greatness: Make Way for the Mezzogiorno

Class transcript:

On our third lesson devoted to the greatest grapes of the boot, and we have so far covered two of the more widely known noble varietals, that being the blood of Job and the grape that takes its name from the myths of Paul Nebbiolo. This week, we are tackling the third great Italian red varietal, the third leg of that Italian kind of pantheon stool, Aglianico. And it's the grape I think that the fewest of you will be familiar with, although I have been heartened to get messages from all sorts of our regular attendees about their studies abroad in Italy, their experiences traveling. Throughout southern Italy and, you know, just how much they too love the wines of the region. Southern Italian red wines in particular are my first love.

I came of age in the restaurant world working at Washington, D.C.'s finest Neapolitan restaurant, Two Amy's. And the wine list there was exclusively southern Italian. And the first experience I had tasting wine in a professional setting was with Peter Passon, who, as the proprietor of Two Amy's, makes wine himself and is, you know, a bit imperious in his tasting mode. But I had never seen anyone taste as seriously and thoughtfully as he did, never heard anyone talk about wine the way he did. And, you know, what I loved was that, you know, these are red wines that are not as approachable as the Cali Cabs of the world, even as the Pinot Noirs of the world. You know, they are, you know, they can be challenging wines.

They can be, you know, not unlike Sangiovese itself, high in acid and, you know, very gripping in terms of their tannic structure. They very often take time to come into their own. But their charms, you know, are on par with any other wine in the world. And I think they're all the more rewarding because you kind of have to be in on the joke. And there's something, you know, in my mind, profound, earthy, you know, very much of a place and of a people. And these are wines that, you know, regardless of whether you like them or not at first, I think, you know, they're wines that you want to understand at a deeper level. And, you know, they're wines that, you know, speak to this amazing food culture that exists in the Meso-Giorno, which is southern Italy.

So I'm going to give everyone a few more moments to join us here. Thank you for taking time on this beautiful Sunday afternoon to join our 30th lesson, 3-0. Pretty remarkable. We're thrilled. We're thrilled to have you all with us. We're provisioning with four full bottles of Alianico and a flight of three wines, and dividing our time between two Italian provinces, Campania and Basilicata. As always, especially with, you know, these wines that are a little more monolithic, in this case derived from one varietal, you know, I'm concerned less with the order in which we ultimately enjoy these, open these up, drink them. And I should say more concerned with, you know, the ability to try them one against the other.

So, you know, grab a couple glasses, grab three glasses and use one wine as a foil for the other and allow, you know, one, you know, kind of set of flavors to illuminate another. You know, I think that, you know, casting one wine into relief with another is really one of my favorite ways to taste wine and certainly one of the most illuminating. So don't worry about getting it wrong for the sake of the order. Just settle in and enjoy this class. I'll be tracing a narrative starting in Campania, working our way to Basilicata, moving into the most noble zones of both regions, Taurasi and Volturi, and then closing out with a really fun kind of glimpse at Roman wine history. And certainly Alianico is a grape that invites that.

So without further ado, let's kick off the show. Let's kick it off. Let's get started in earnest. Just big ups, first and foremost, to all of our wine school champions. We have all sorts of wine school proselytizers in our midst. You know, to those of you that have, you know, been regularly attending these lessons and on top of that, encourage others to join, be it, you know, family members or friends. Thank you so much. You know, this would not have worked for 30 weeks on end without you. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful that it has. As I mentioned before, you know, Alianico is like mother's milk to me. You know, certainly I am not Italian myself; I am hugely Northern European. There isn't a drop of Southern European blood in my ancestry.

But I really have family and friends that were from Campania. I had a chance, opportunity to go to the wedding. And, you know, it has always been a region that has resonated with me. And these wines speak, you know, profoundly. To this wonderful, amazing corner of the world. As we are wont to do, we're going to kick things off with a bit of verse. This week, of course it has to be a Southern Italian poet. And there is no more famous Southern Italian poet than Horace, the Roman statesman soldier poet. He's a proud son of Basilicata. He would have called it Lucania, it was the Latin name for that region. But Basilicata, the instep of the boot. We'll show you the rest of it. You a map in a hot second.

Horace wrote extensively about wine. Horace was like, you know, Hova in his day. He was name-dropping, you know, Falerni and all the other greatest wines of the Roman era in his poetry, you know, the same way that the rapper poets of our era loved to drop the Ace of Spades and Cristal's of their era. So it would have been fitting for me to choose one of those epic wine rants, but I chose a different bit of verse, naturally, because it is one of my favorite poems from antiquity, and I am, you know, feeling spitting a heat. No lesser English scholar of the classics, A.E. Houseman, said that in his mind, this particular ode is the most beautiful poem in ancient literature. This is not Houseman's translation; this is a different translation.

But you know, wonderful in and of its own right. So without further ado, the snow dissolved no more as seen the fields and woods behold are green. The changing year renews the plain. The rivers know their banks again. The sprightly nymph and naked grace the mazy dance together trace. The changing year's successive plan proclaims mortality to man. Rough winters blast to spring. Spring yields to summers. Then summer sinks in autumn's rain and winter chills the world again. Her losses soon the moon supplies but wretched man when once he lies where Priam and his sons are laid is not but ashes and a shade. And that is Samuel Johnson's translation. That was actually published, translated by Samuel Johnson months before he passed away. And, you know, that last line is translated many different ways.

You know, if you're Proximo in Gladiator, you say shadows and dust. But that is all for us at the at the end of the day. And wine itself, you know, reminds us of, you know, those cycles of life and death in a really profound and beautiful way. So, a fitting that that bit of verse should kick us off. Without further ado, we're kicking it with Alianico. Alianico, in the words of the incredible oncologist, one who studies grapes, varietals. Probably the grape with the longest consumer history of all. It is a grape whose origins are shrouded in myth. There are all sorts of origin stories for Alianico. I find the most compelling is that it is a grape of Greek origin. So, the southern part of Italy, Naples and south, was first colonized by the Greeks.

They called it Magna Gracia. And this is a region that has all sorts of grapes that kind of betray a purported Greek origin. You know, you think about, you know, Falanghina, you know, Alianico. These are, you know, words themselves that, you know, seemingly would have Greek roots. It's thought there's one theory positive that Alianico itself comes from Hellenica, like Vitis Hellenica or the Greek grape. And that was first planted by the Greeks. But borrowed from the Phoenicians. Across the Mediterranean at Metaporto, which is a colony at the southern end of Basilicata. There's another theory that the Greeks did the planting, but they did it north of Naples, where it became the basis for the most famous wine of the Roman era, which is Falernum. There's another theory that is probably accurate.

It should be said that the grape itself was likely domesticated and evolved on the Italian subcontinent itself. It makes a less romantic story. But all those grapes that, you know, purportedly would have Greek origins, even Greco. You know, how could the great Greco not be Greek? Most of the digging that modern grape scientists have done indicated that it is most likely that these are grapes that evolved in southern Italy. Now, there is such a strong Greek influence there that it's fitting that linguistically there would be Greek imprint. But there are no, there is no evidence of a lot of Greek influence. It's just like Greek grapes in Greece itself. And these grapes are so ancient. Elianiko is so ancient that its parents are likely lost to history.

First mentioned in the modern era under the name Elianiche, which is the feminine plural in 1520 in Italy. And it has been grown there ever since. And it has survived miraculously, somewhat miraculously in the modern era through the efforts of, you know, stalwart producers, you know, like Massaro Berardino, who we'll touch on in a moment. Who really championed this grape and other native varietals in the midst of the 20th century, the mid-20th century in particular, which is not very kind to Italy more broadly, but particularly the southern Italian peasantry. What of Elianiko itself? You know, what is it like? It is an incredibly early budding grape and an incredibly late ripening grape. So even in the sudden kissed corner of the world, Campania, Basilicata.

The harvest has yet to start in a lot of these corners of both regions. So, you know, people will be harvesting Elianiko grapes well into early November in these parts of the world. And, you know, for that reason, just to head off a lot of the global warming questions, a lot of people are looking at Elianiko as a grape to plant in sun-scorched regions of, you know, Australia, for instance, as a grape for the future, because if it ripens, you know, in late November in southern Italy, then maybe it will, you know, at least ripen in Australia, you know, in, you know, early September, as it were, even as the world gets preposterously warm. Now, Elianiko is most widely known, you know, by its sobriquet, the Barolo of the South.

It is often compared to Nebbiolo because it is a high acid grape with very thick skins. Should be said, I think that does a huge disservice both to Barolo. Yeah. And to, you know, the major Elianiko regions. You know, no one in Barolo is going around calling Barolo, you know, the Taurasi of the North. You know, that would just be preposterous. But, you know, this whole thing of, you know, comparing, you know, under, you know, appreciated wines with, you know, more vastly appreciated ones, you know, I think it misses the boat. You know, I'd rather consider Elianiko on its own merits. And even though it shares a high acid and intense tannic grip with Nebbiolo. It is a vastly different bridle in terms of its flavor profile.

Because it leans much more into these like darker fruits of this forest. This kind of like pruney, cocoa-y, you know, there are these great carob pods and stuff. They usually have these like cocoa, licorice, leaf dimension to them. And it's more savagely herbaceous in its own right in a way that I find hugely exciting. I think it's, you know, much more savory, kind of brooding wine. That's not to say that's not pretty, you know, in its own kind of. Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff kind of way. You know, but I think it's like, you know, it's a brooding pretty man as opposed to, you know, Nebbiolo feels to me like a bit of a dandy. You know, you know, it's like a knighted horseman, you know, a chevalier with a beautiful sword, you know.

Elianiko is a little more rugged. It's like the Garibaldi of the Italian grape firmament. Let's consider here a map. I know you all love maps. And if you joined us before, you are well aware that I do as well. And let's consider the southern end of the boot here. So we got the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Naples in particular, the Adriatic to our east, and then the Gulf to Toronto and the wider Mediterranean. And ultimately, Tunisia to the south. But two provinces that we're going to consider, Campania and Basilicata. Now, Campania is south of Rome. It was very much the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. But it is very different than Lazio, the region that surrounds Rome. There's a much stronger Greek influence, and it is anchored by the city of Naples, Napoli there.

I'm going to read to you an excerpt from this wonderful Times Travel secondary. It's the second piece about the author's love of Naples as a city. And it embodies some of what I love. You know, I've never been to Naples. You know, based on the strength of this article, I certainly want to go. But it speaks to the larger region, certainly, the way they live their lives, and ultimately, I think, some of the charms of their wines. But she's talking about Naples itself and, you know, the region by extension. Maybe it's the location. Set on that wide bay that looks out on movie-set Capri and its poorer cousin, Ischia, and the more storied, active volcano in the world at the city's shoulder, Vesuvius, inescapable memento mori.

Or maybe it's the history of colonization, first by Greeks, then Romans, Normans, and after them, the Spanish, and later even Italians, and the lingering presence of organized crime. But this is a city that's seen it all, survived most of it. And if you have the patience to explore, it will win you over and never let you go. Its spell can be powerful, more elegant, restrained Florence, or show-offy Rome with its perfect ruined beauty. And even more than otherworldly Venice, I would argue, in its earthly, squalid, slightly menacing disport, Naples is the most romantic city in the world. And I think that applies for the region at large. You know, there's a sense of, you know, political fortunes being fickle. Life is hard. So at the very least, we should enjoy good food and good wine.

And enjoy the pleasures of the day. Because we don't know what tomorrow will bring, in the words of Horace: Carpe Diem. But Campania is itself, comes from the Latin 'Campania felis', the happy field, and agricultural region throughout the Roman era. An important supplier of wine throughout the Roman era. We reference Folignano. As one of its most important agricultural products. In the modern era, the most important wine region that we're going to consider is this region just inland from the coast. And you get a sense here that, you know, obviously you're at sea level near Naples itself. But it is a hugely mountainous region, Campania. As you approach the spine of the Apennines, which run north and south along the full length of the boot, you get into very high altitudes.

Avellino, Benevento, Taurasi, which gives its name to the most famous Aglianico in the region. You know, these are regions that, you know, see snow in the winter. You know, a lot of these wineries abut ski runs. And, you know, that, you know, dramatic shift in temperature, you know, from daytime high to nighttime low in these higher altitude regions. It, you know, gives the wine a certain amount of freshness; that it wouldn't possess otherwise. And it means that the Aglianicos of Campania, they tend to be, you know, brighter and a little more structured than the ones to the south. Although I think the residents of Basilica might quibble with that. But I think largely there is truth there. Taurasi in particular comprises 17 communes, each with, you know, kind of its own distinct flavor as far as the wine goes.

But that's something that we're going to get into a little bit later. We are first and foremost going to consider our first wine here, which is from this region. It is from close to Avellino and from a producer named, I got the wrong one. Oh, here we go. Ciro Picariello. And Ciro Picariello, I apologize to any of you who actually speak Italian because I must be profaning your ears. But Ciro Picariello is a younger wine. He's been making wine, his family has for generations upon generations. But he himself started the winery relatively recently in 2004. He's actually famous for his whites. And it should be said that Campania is as well known certainly for its whites as its reds. Ciro in particular works with a grape called Fiano and makes, you know, profoundly delicious Burgundian long-lived white wines from that varietal.

Here is Ciro himself. This particular wine, which I'm tasting now, though, it comes from vineyards that he inherited from or passed down from his mother-in-law. So the wine itself, Z Filicella, is named for his mother-in-law. And these are Alianco vineyards trained the traditional way, which I think is so cool. So they are trained in a style called Raggidera Avellinese. I'm wishing that Zoe could hop in and pronounce all these things for me. She actually speaks Italian, but I'm not that good. I should have given you, Zoe, you know, a clip note on these Italian words, but I didn't have my act together. So you'll all have to suffer through this. I apologize. But basically it's a pergola system of training vines. And it's all about this, you know, system of agriculture that the Romans would call promiscuous agriculture.

So the idea is that you have these pergola-trained vines. And that you can win them. And you can work with other crops underneath your vines. Because, you know, you only have a small amount of land. The average holding here is, you know, two to four hectares even to this day. So you have these preposterously high-trained vines that are widely spaced that allow you to grow all sorts of crops in their midst. Now, I had neighbors across the street from us, the Fiortinos, and the patriarch was a chef. And he had a garden that was trained this way. In the, you know, traditional promiscuous agricultural style. And it was like Eden. It was insane. He had all sorts of crops underneath, you know, these high-trained vines.

And, you know, it felt like, you know, this agricultural paradise in the middle of, you know, Friendship Heights, Bethesda. Preposterous. And, you know, this green thumb, you know, exists, you know, in spades in this corner of the world. Now, when the vines get this old, they become underproductive. You know, in the region in the modern era. They're moving away from this style of transportation. They're moving away from the traditional vines. So, nobody trains their vines this way if they're planting original vines these days. And that's because planting this way tends to produce vines that are very productive. Because they're so widely spaced, you know, they have not a lot of competition. So, they tend to produce a lot of fruit, more dilute wine.

Albariño, though, you know, it tends to produce, you know, pretty interesting wines even at, you know, pretty large volumes. But, you know, you can only extend that so far. What's really cool, though, is that, you know, this is very much a traditional style of wine. So, it's a very simple style of winemaking for the sake of this particular offering. And I have this one in the front here, The Z Filicella. And, you know, if you're just opening this bottle, you should note that it does have, like, a little pin prickly thing. So, you know, it has a little bit of, like, residual SO2. That's okay. You know, Aglianico is a grape that is prone to a certain amount of reduction as well. So, you might get a little sulfur on the nose.

It will blow off. If you're worried about it, give this wine a decant and it will show beautifully. And it will reveal layers upon layers of this, you know, glorious, you know, herbal, you know, leaf and licorice and, you know, kind of bright red fruits. This seeds a relatively short maceration, you know, less than two weeks in stainless steel. It is a fresh kind of bon vivant-ish, easy-drinking pizza wine, I think, at the end of the day. Zoe, you know, you gave this one a try. You didn't get a chance to taste through the blight, sadly. But you did try the Z filicella. What did you think of this? I loved it. I thought it was a little bit funky. It was so well-structured, really chewy tannins to it.

And then I really liked the dried complexity of the fruit, all these, like, really toasty herbs. I did write down, like, the, like, baking cocoa powder, like, bitter chocolate as well. But I thought that, like, the tannins were just great. The acid was so high. The acid is high. It's, you know, beautiful, stately, but a little funky, which I like. Yeah, and there's a chewiness, a real chewiness to the tannic structure that I really dig. You know, I think the tannins are certainly present. So, you know, it's not a wine for someone that, you know, wants something that's entirely devoid of that grip. You know, if you want something that, you know, doesn't have a lick of that, you know, there are other wines. There's Maomi out there for you.

But, you know, Italian reds are defined by that grip. And for me, you know, that bitterness, that astringency, that herbal leaf that, you know, is so, you know, readily present in Italian, you know, after dinner drinks in particular. You know, that's something that, you know, I adore. You know, that, you know, bitter set of flavors is something that, you know, scientifically actually stimulates digestion. And for me, it anchors the wines. I've talked about this before in classes. But, you know, it's a lot like, you know, bitters used in cocktails. They're like salt in food. You know, they're seasoning. And, you know, for me, there's something, you know, grounding about, you know, that bitter leaf, you know, that these wines would miss otherwise.

And, you know, that's not to say that, you know, tans can't be out of whack, that they can't be unpleasant. But, you know, I think in this case, you know, it's just something delicately chewy that they bring to this particular offering. Now, next up, we're going to consider a very different wine, both stylistically and, you know, kind of philosophically. This is a Bicea. Yeah. So, you saw Ciro, you know, leaning on the vine there. I think, you know, everything you really need to know about, you know, stylistically, you know, for the sake of this particular offering is summed up in the winery itself. So, you know, you can imagine yourself, you know, visiting, or I like to imagine myself in, you know, a non-pandemic era visiting Ciro.

You know, his, you know, wife and daughter and son, you know, kind of roll out some meats and cheeses for me. You know, we, you know, small talk in what limited Italian I possess. And we while away the day. And that, you know, sounds like a perfect day to me. You're going to get a very different, you know, visitation experience when you visit Basilicata and Biceglia. This is their winery. So we're talking, you know, a little more of that like nouveau riche here founded in 2001. So around the same time as Ciros winery. But, you know, you're dealing with a common story. So you have a proud son of the region, Mario Biceglia. Who? And I really hope that Italians somewhere are mocking my pronunciation in English.

I just hope that happens, you know, in reverse for what it's worth. But Mario made his fortune in the north, came back to the south because land is much cheaper there. And also because, you know, he wanted to revive the agricultural traditions of his home province. And, you know, winemaking sounded like a fun way to do that. So, you know, he had enough money to arrive. And, you know, he was able to direct this thing, which is a beautiful modern winery. The architects here are Hikaru Moro and Domenico Santomaro. Hopefully Brian Miller is listening and, you know, he can glean something worthwhile from those names. I didn't do enough research to get a full sense of what the remainder of their work is like. You have to imagine that in context, though.

We're in Basilicata here, which is one of the most impoverished, sparsely populated regions of Italy. You know, arguably the most impoverished, sparsely populated region of Italy. We are in the shadow of Mount Volturi. It is preposterously beautiful. These are the very vineyards that Bicellio presides over. And I'm not, you know, wanting to, you know, cuckoo anyone's right to modern architecture. But, you know, I think this speaks to itself. You know, I don't know that we need Domenico and Hikaru, you know, doing their bidding. But, you know, that speaks to my idealized version of, you know, wine in a particular context and not necessarily, you know, what exists on the ground or even what should exist on the ground. But neither here nor there.

I think the wine reflects its origins in the sense that this is stylistically a much more modern wine. So for those of you tasting this at home, you'll note a more prominent oak influence. So this sees 12 months in new barrique, no expense spared. Alier and another French forest in the mix for the sake of the Cooperage. And, you know, what is cool about Alianico, though, is it's a grape that takes on this oak and does it really beautifully. So, you know, this is a wine that, you know, is much denser. I think you pick up on that new oak influence. It is, you know, sturdier. You know, there's much more dried fruit quality to it. You know, it's less sprightly than Chito's wine was.

You know, it is denser, you know, certainly in terms of the mouthfeel on this particular offering. The soils are different here than they are. You know, you're in the shadow of a less active volcano in this corner of Basilicata. And the soils are volcanic. In spite of the fact that Avellino is itself very close to Vesuvius, the soils there actually are heavily riddled with limestone. And, you know, that gives a certain, you know, higher acidity to those wines and a freshness to the wines that you might not expect on volcanic soils. Volcanic soils tend to give a fuller body, more dense, brooding kinds of offerings. Zoe, just for the sake of tasting notes on this one, how would you compare, contrast the Biselia, Alianico, to the Zipolice that we just introduced?

To do a classic pairing, I would say that the Goudara could be like a Calicab in comparison to a classic Bordeaux. I think the Goudaria, you see all of that toasted new French oak. It's very sweet and juicy. There is, of course, a little bit of tannin and grip there. But I find it just so much more soft and pleasant, but still has a nice, there's enough structure and a stateliness to it. It's a good balance between the two. I also found that like the blackberries were also a little underripe and it kind of went into like a vegetal place to me, where it was like the berries and the thorn and the bush, like all of those, not like a herbaceous, like gummy herbaceousness. I didn't get as much herbaceousness out of it.

I went to a very different place with the fructose. For me, it was like super pruney. So for me, it was, you know, it was like, you know, those old prune commercials, you know, with your grandparents in wine form for better or worse. And, you know, there's something, you know, I think this wine has kind of like cheerier tannins, whereas, you know, the quality of fruit for me in this one was a little more baked, a little more of that like fruit leather tonality, whereas this one, you know, had more of that, you know, kind of like, you know, bright like tart fruit still in the mix in spite of its tannins. But to each to each their own. I want to kind of showcase Basilicata. On the map here.

It's a fascinating region. So Basilicata is literally the instep of the boot. We've talked at length about, you know, the history of Alianico in Campania. It is no less historic in Basilicata itself. We talked about Horace earlier. Horace is a proud son of Northern Basilicata. He grew up along these ancient roads. These ancient trade routes from Naples to the south. And it's said that as early as the second century, Hannibal, who sent soldiers, you know, across the Alps. He, when they needed to recuperate, kind of exiled them to Volturi to drink of the wines that had healing or medicinal properties, as far as he knew. So, you know, and throughout the centuries, through the 13th century, Charles of Anjou, who was sojourning in the region as one does, ordered up all sorts of wine from Volturi for his summer sojourn.

And, you know, into the modern era, it has retained its status as one of the great wines of Southern Italy. You know, the story of Alianico di Volturi is very much a story of Taurasi in these other noble regions, noble but historic regions in Southern Italy. And that's that, you know, they fell by the wayside in the modern era. And, you know, that has everything to do with, you know, the kind of economic, you know, kind of trajectory of Southern Italy. You know, it is an agricultural region. You know, until very recently, it had no real infrastructure to speak of. And because of that, you know, because of no industrial infrastructure to speak of. And because of that, it, you know, lost out as it entered the modern era and there weren't, you know, jobs aplenty as farms consolidated.

You know, for this reason, you know, I think that's really interesting because you know, the most of the states to this day are much smaller. There are no, you know, as there are in Tuscany grand villas, you know, there was no tradition of that here, you know, there, there are no minority less states as there are, you know, in, in Piedmont, you know, that, that doesn't exist. In this corner of the world, you know, that they're only cooperatives into the modern era. And it really wasn't until the eighties and nineties when great prices, prices started to plummet that, you know, the smaller growers here recognize that if they wanted to continue to make a living on the land, they had to create a product from their fruit. They couldn’t sell their fruit directly.

You know, they had to start making wine themselves, but what's hugely exciting about that is that, you know, these you know, historic Appalachians have emerged out of that, which is a great segue into our flight. So you, you know, did a great job of highlighting Basilicata on the, on the map there for our viewers at home. Are there any questions from the commentary? No questions as of yet. No, I got nothing. I'm so sorry. Thanks everyone for your questions though. So we are moving on now to Taurasi. And it should be said that Taurasi is one of the great wines of the world, but one that, you know, really didn't emerge until, you know, the eighties, nineties, and it had, you know, over the course of the 20th century, really one champion.

And that was the Mastro Berardino family. And I think to tell the story of Campania, you really have to tell the story of the Mastro Berardino family. So sadly there was such an interest in the flights that, and then, you know, there was a bit of a snafu at our regular hour studio. So the bottle that the third bottle that would be here, representative of the, the first wine in the flight from Mastro Berardino, their Taurasi Radici has gone missing. So you'll have to imagine that. And that's the first wine I'm going to taste. So for those of you at home working your way through the flight, pick things up with the Mastro Berardino story. Now it begins as a commercial, commercial winery in 1878, although they are at pains to make sure that you know that they have been making wine for many generations before that.

You know, that said, the fact that it started commercial production in 1878 is really remarkable. You know, the oldest estates in Brunello, you know, we're just starting in the early 1870s. You know, the same is true of Barolo, you know, there wasn't a real tradition of estate bottling in Italy until the late 19th century. And, you know, none of those brands, you know, exist in the French or German sense stretching back to, you know, the 17th, 16th century at all. So, you know, 1878 is about as old as it gets in the parlance of, you know, modern Italian wine. Now Mastro Berardino, kind of a funny name. It's fascinating. So it should be said that it's an honorific.

So the Berardino family was, was so good at making wine, even at an early stage that the local residents appended the Mastro, the master to the Berardino. You know, so it would be like if, you know, I got my Master of Wine and started demanding that, you know, Zoe referred to me as Bill Master Jensen. And that, you know, extended through multiple generations for all my descendants. I'm not proposing that. And I'm a validly anti-certification of any kind. So you won't see, you know, Master Jensen's inheriting the earth, but at any rate, I thought that was a fun bit of etymology there. And, you know, a bit of a mindfuck. I mean, they're kind of, you know, local nobility and they are proud of that status in the way that, you know, local nobility tends to be.

They established a brand really early. So, you know, I think we, you know, think about a lot of these wines and they feel novel, but, you know, you know, at the early, you know, kind of. You know, before World War II, it should be said, the Mastro Berardino family was marketing its wines around the world, initially in London, but then throughout the new world, both in the United States and in South America. So they were establishing their brand well before World War II kind of incapacitated the continent. Obviously the, you know, war period and World War II. And well after the war, when, you know, fascists and Republicans continue to fight it out in Italy was a very challenging time throughout the boot, but the family struggled through, the true kind of modern hero, you know, of the Mastro Berardino narrative of the sake of the continuity of this brand and these wines is Antonio.

He sadly passed away in 2014, but he is responsible for reviving the estate after World War II. He is, you know, kind of a walking museum. He'd been called, you know, by Hugh Johnson, a true big cultural archeologist. But instead of after World War II, replanting his estate with ubiquitous international varieties, which is what a lot of his neighbors did. There was also a lot of Sangiovese planted here because it was more productive and easier to work with than the, you know, kind of more locally significant, historically significant varieties. Antonio championed Alianico. He championed Falanghina. He championed, you know, Pianoforte. He championed Greco. And so, you know, a lot of those grapes, you know, owe their, you know, continued kind of resurgent popularity to Antonio Mastro Berardino.

And he in 1968, in particular, released a version of his Taurasi that gained acclaim throughout Europe and around the world. And you can still get those '68 wines, actually look for them online. They sell for, you know, upwards of $4,000. And interestingly enough, they're actually there - vineyard based or commune-based, which even to this day in Taurasi is pretty atypical. And it should be said that Mastro Berardino doesn't make wines to this day that way. So, you know, he was well ahead of his time, even in 1968. But he kind of, you know, kind of starts the ball rolling for Taurasi. And, you know, what starts as a handful of producers becomes, you know, dozens upon dozens and what starts as, you know, a few hundred acres becomes thousands of acres, you know, through to the modern era.

You know, for the sake of his first wine, you know, we are dealing with, fascinatingly enough, you know, relatively younger vines. You know, that seems counterintuitive. So, you know, if you have this estate that traces its roots to 1878, what happened to, you know, these older vineyards? Because they did exist. And, you know, if you remember, you know, our mother-in-law, you know, she has these pergola-trained vines. You know, dating back almost 100 years. Well, in the case of the Mastroberdina family, there was an epic falling out in true Italian fashion. Piero and his brother had a massive disagreement. Walter had already started, you know, making wine on his own through a separate project that, you know, many of you may know. It's called Terrador de Paolo. It's also one of the largest producers in Campania.

It's named after his wife, Paulo. And Walter, you know, finally, you know, pissed off his brother enough that this went to court. And the King Solomon bargain they came up with was that Piero kept the name and Walter got most of the vineyard acreage. And I think it's a great philosophical question for those of you at home. You know, would you rather have the brand or the vineyards? I think it's hugely fascinating. But Piero is a cool dude. He's a 10th generation winemaker. He's actually a economics professor. He's kind of the most interesting man in the world. I'm reading to you from a, an interview that he did. I really dig the fact that he doesn't work with any consulting and knowledge. That is kind of the hotness throughout Italy throughout emerging wine regions.

You know, it's hard to find people that, you know, have the strength of their own convictions and want to make wines, you know, according to their own, you know, kind of, you know, sense of, you know, style or self-worth. Or identity for a particular zone. But, you know, he hires winemakers, but he wants to make sure that they have, you know, their feet in the vineyards in Taurasi. For the sake of turning out these, these wines and, you know, so for him, the notion of, you know, hiring, inviting in a consultant to make his wines go more early to base, which I think is super cool, but he finishes this interview and, you know, clearly he's a busy man. He's an economics professor. He's traveling all the time.

The interviewer says, if you don't mind, tell me something about your personal life. You know, do you have any hobbies? He said, I don't really have a lot of free time. I like to write poetry. Last year, I published a collection of poems and in the process of publishing another volume, I will be, it will be a collaborative artist with a visual artist, a collaborative work with a visual artist who will provide artwork and I will present my poetry. I also paint and have recently had exhibitions of my art in various cities in Italy, as well as a major exhibition in Brazil last year. I'm also a professor of economics. At the University of Boggia, where I teach and do research on management and social sciences. I like to ski.

And so, I like to ski and visit the northern ski regions of Italy. When he's not doing that, he loves the countryside. And of course, he loves to tour on his motorbike. You know, Piero is, you know, truly the most interesting man in the world. And we're, we're celebrating certainly, you know, I, you know, I kind of wish, I hope that one day I will be, you know, an Italian, like repute, but at any rate, onto the wine, Master Berardino. This particular Taurasi comes from incredibly high elevations within the Taurasi zone. There are different communes. I alluded earlier to the fact that once upon a time, Master Berardino used to bottle individual commune wines. But this particular offering hails from Montemorano. In Montemorano, it has the highest altitude, wines in the zone.

You got Monteparte, Montemolito, and I believe Montemorano is in the shadow of that particular village. You know, so you're talking about 600 meters. And, you know, that, you know, late November ripening I spoke to. And that gives you higher acid, but somewhat counterintuitively, it tends to also give you thicker skins on the grapes and more structure in the wine. So, you know, to taste this first wine, I think, you know, it is densely structured. It sees 30 months of oak. There's a 60-40 split between Slavonian, a larger Slavonian Tass. Slavonian oak actually comes from the Czech, actually comes from, I should say, not the Czech Republic. I'm totally blanking here. It should come from Croatia, Slavonian oak. There is Slovenian oak as well, but Slavonian is from Croatia. And then French Barrique.

See some new oak influence, but, you know, largely a lighter hand with the oak for this wine. But, you know, I think this one is dense, brooding. It's not a modern wine as such. It still feels very old world. But, you know, to my mind, it has that, you know, kind of full throttle, you know, structured herbaceousness that I've come to expect from the greatest Taurasi in the world. Next up, we have the Leonardo Taurasi. This comes from closer to the village itself, the commune of Taurasi. Leonardo isn't on the map itself, but Leonardo is an incredibly gifted winemaker. He's a grower for many moons until he was kind of, you know, discovered the wines he was making himself and encouraged to bottle himself in the early 2000s.

And he makes wine along with his daughter and does it in a more kind of delightfully old-school fashion. He's also at lower elevation, hundreds of meters above sea level, hundreds of meters lower than the single vineyard that Masroberdino uses for the radici. His vines are also older. And this is a much more Burgundian kind of wine. It's silkier, it's smoother. I say Burgundian, which is to say kind of Pinot Noir-like. There's something softer about it. It's not devoid of tannins, but, you know, I think of the wines that we've tasted so far, it is, you know, the most feminine. And, you know, I hesitate sometimes to, you know, gender these wines, but, you know, for me, it does have that, you know, you know, elegance, you know, that, that perfume about it.

You know, it's a little more live. It's a little more sinewy for its own sake. And I do really adore that about his wines. It also has a little more age to it. It's a 2013 as opposed to the 2014 we were drinking for the sake of the Masroberdino. And it should be said, you know, in as much as Barolo, which is, you know, in Barolo, which is one of the most celebrated, you know, corners of Italy. They are, you know, kind of just now, you know, delimiting the individual communes and, you know, kind of getting a fuller sense of, you know, what these individual zones have to offer when it comes to, you know, the site-specific qualities of these individual wines, you know, they are, you know, just beginning to do the same work throughout Taurasi.

So, you know, we spoke about, you know, the individual commune that the Masroberdino wine comes from, but, you know, equally this commune of Taurasi, you know, has its own character that's different. And, you know, I think for the people that, you know, love the wines and, you know, are, you know, kind of on the ground in this corner of the world, they are incredibly excited about, you know, seeing that, you know, further, you know, development, further sussing out of, you know, these kind of individual, you know, styles of wine and, you know, sussing out these, you know, these kind of individual dimensions of terroir because, you know, honestly, you know, in these, you know, special corners of the wine world, you know, that's what it's all about.

You know, we want to know, you know, for this particular grape, for this particular site, you know, what does it have to express about a sense of place, you know, that ultimately is what makes these wines special. Which brings us to last but not least, the Aglianico di Palturi. This is kind of a very different animal. This comes from a really kick-ass email winemaker, Elena Pucci. She herself trained in winemaking but, you know, was essentially faced with a fork in the road. So her grandfather started farming on the slopes of a volcano in the 60s and she was faced with a choice to sell the family domain or to, you know, make it profitable herself. And she leaned hard into wine. She went to an oenology school.

She came back and now she's one of the most accomplished winemakers in the zone. And I adore her wines. She says about her approach that she is modern but not modernist. I really like that. So, you know, there is a quality, you know, kind of conscious, you know, kind of, you know, style of thinking here. And there is certainly a, you know, she's not afraid of new oak. This is 12 months in French Barrique. But it wears it very differently than the Mastro Berardino does, than the Aglianico di Palturi. I think, you know, the purity of her wine really shines through. The fruit shines through. The, you know, this like wonderful baking spice leaf really, really shines through. This kind of like crushed, you know, bay leaf, you know, seedery, herbaceousness shines through.

And part of that is the new oak influence. But, you know, I think part of that is, you know, just, you know, her deft hand in the vineyard and in the cellar. And, you know, for me, this is the most, you know, kind of conventionally fruity, you know, wine that we are tasting through. And, you know, kind of, you know, has more of that, you know, baking spice, you know, kind of charm to it. You know, a little less of that dried fruit, a little more kind of like aggressively ripe, juicy fruit to it. And I really adore that about this particular wine. We're also serving it at a Magnum. And wine in Magnum tends to, you know, age more slowly than wine in a 750 bottle.

So, you know, this 2014 will inherently in Magnum, you know, taste younger than a 2014 that we poured out of a 750 milliliter bottle. And, you know, the paradigm there is just about the rate of oxygen transfer. So, oxygenation is the method, oxidation is the method of wine. You just have a smaller volume of air in the neck of the bottle relative to a larger volume of wine in the bottle for the sake of a Magnum than for the sake of any 750. Zoe, sadly, you didn't get a chance to taste these wines, so I dominated this discourse. Do folks have any comments about these fruity wines? Do they have, you know, any, you know, tasting notes? Do they have, you know, any favorites for the sake of the wines that we tried so far on the Ileana Cup Run?

There was. There was quite a lot of talk about how bitter it was, I think, at first, but now there's been, I think, it's opened up and everyone is a little bit more. Which one in particular, all the wines or? I would probably guess the Tito, but I actually don't know specifically. Tim thinks that it would be delicious with a sweet potato that we're serving at Tug right now, so great shout out. And also I think that's absolutely phenomenal. Thank you. Thank you, Tim, for the shameless cross promotion there. I think this is, so that sweet potato, it comes off the plancha, develops this like kind of hard sear, and it's a bigger flavor. You need a bigger flavor on a vegetable dish for a wine like this, but, you know, some of those like charred bitter, you know, kind of tonalities on these wines will equally work well with, you know, the charred bitter flavors in a, you know, hammered sweet potato dish like that, certainly.

There was a phenomenal comment about how Alianico is more like a middle-aged and dignified woman, as opposed to being like a, like a 19-year-old. Like there's just a, having something really soft and subtle and being like a little bit more of a ubiquitous red in comparison to drinking Taurasi, that's just so much more mature and has all of the angles to it. Yeah. And for me, that's, that's kind of what it's an interesting wine, you know, it's not, yeah, it's not a Hollywood starling, you know, it is, you know, actually I traded emails with, you know, one of our listeners, I was personifying, you know, personifying, you know, Nebbiolo versus Cabernet and imagining John Wayne in bed as one does during wine school. And he asked me to personify Pinot Noir.

And, you know, we're thinking it had to be French, you know, and, you know, I'm a friend of Pinot Noir. Came up with a various, you know, kind of French new wave, you know, directors and, and, you know, kind of leading men. But I also came up with Marlon Brando because you know, a Pinot can be brooding. You know, it can be, you know, kind of. Very emotive and expressive, and it can also be hugely disappointing. And in warmer climates, it can also get very flabby. All of which applies to, to Marlon. uh certainly uh but i like that um you know kind of um you know aging more dignified kind of persona that alienico takes on it's not you know really i don't think it's an it's not an obvious wine you know it's not something that you know maybe it's not the first wine that you um fall in love with it is it is more cerebral it's like you actually have to engage the wine you actually have to talk to the wine it's not something you just ogle at you know you don't like swirl in the glass and look at the legs you know and say you know that's it i love this you know you you have to develop a rapport with alienico um and you know i think a lot of italian grapes are like that but you know alienico cheaply because you know initially you know can be little you know kind of standoffish but you know it should be said i met my wife that way i fell in love with her you know when uh we were at a college party and you know i made some you know quippy uh comment to her and she shot right back you know i you know i think that is you know that's the gold um you know when you find someone to you know engage in that banter with you that is you know worth a lifetime as opposed to just you know a cali fab's worth of ongoing um but without further ado what else he has up um why do some wineries choose to bottle in magnums and others don't i don't say it's um personal choice about prestige and um it's harder to bottle in magnum so um most wineries bottle on bottling lines which are engineered for 750 milliliter bottle you can change the the height of you know the component that has the cork but you can't change it uh so much as to accommodate a bottle like this and a different size cork in Many cases, um, so they're just kind of a pain in the ass to work with and on top of that people tend not to buy them, um. I love, love, love Magnums, um, a wine tends to age um more gracefully in Magnum than it ages in 750, you know. People just don't buy them, but almost all wineries um will set aside a few, but it's one of those things, it's kind of like a labor of love, you know. Wineries set them aside knowing that um outside of a few kind of prestige products or outside of a few really devoted buyers, you know they're not going to turn much of a profit, but because they like to watch the wine age, so, um, you put a bottle on Magnum, you know, less because You're going to open it, you know, um, at the club and it's going to look cool, um, although people do that, um, and there's nothing wrong with that, but, um, if you truly love wine, you do it because you want to see how the wine ages, um, in a larger format, um, and you know that's what magnums give you, um, and you know there are wine collectors who, you know, will validly look for wine and magnificence, um, and, um, it's not, you know, for the sake of pricing out magnums, it's not the case that you know you get a two-for-one or, you know, you get, you know, um, twice the wine for a lower unit price usually magnums are actually more expensive, um, than twice the cost of a 750. Um, and that is due to the rarity, and honestly, often due to the fact that Magnum's are a little bit more expensive than the rarity, and so they age better. Do you think Terrasi is more popular around Italy outside of Campania um or more popular in America? Um, I wish I could say it was more popular in Italy but honestly, um, you know the I think the market in Italy is still very much driven by, you know, their internalization of what the world thinks of their wine.

So, I think it's harder for them to, you know, outside of Campania, outside of these individual villages and regions that are proud of a local product. I think it's hard for them. average italian to you know take on something that's lesser well known and italian proclaim it i think they're more likely to drink brunello and barolo because the world thinks those are the greatest italian things um whereas americans are um you know for better or worse um and and a lot of winemakers on the continent say this we're much more willing to take a chance on something you know we are much you know more fluid um we are much less bound to tradition because we have no tradition you know for better or worse you know um i mean some of us some of us do i don't want to restate that but like you know as a winemaking country with very little tradition um in terms of you know um you know what are the noble styles or grapes and you know there's nothing to say that we can't you know age something you know uh in a particular way or appreciate something you know alongside the greatest wines in the world and you know i think that is liberating and that is why honestly a lot of winemakers continue to love to go to america um you know there are a lot of like smaller like natural wineries in particular you know they develop a market in the united states before people in the next several villages over know anything about them you know um so it's pretty crazy uh you know and and and i think that is sad but true um in in this corner of the world uh as well um how does volcanic soil affect wine in particular um and not just the vine as a plant itself yeah it depends you know honestly Onuwar but um as you know um for for a million dollar question um uh and really fascinating question that we could devote um entire um 60 minutes to i'm not going to uh fear not um we still have 72 participants and you know i don't want to you know create some warm nutrition where we see you know how long you guys can endure for the sake of my you know exposition about volcanic soil but uh volcano soil is really interesting Um, uh, it actually has a tendency to have a higher pH um and uh as such actually a lower pH rather right um, which is a good question. We are moderates really needing only six I can't see it there. Adam's limestone soils have a higher pH, volcanic soils have a lower pH. And it can, you know, as such, if the pH gets too low, kind of retards some metabolic functions in the vine, but it tends to be more fertile because of that lower pH.

And it tends to produce fuller-fruited, you know, more stereophonic kinds of wines. The fact that, you know, volcanic soils tend to be black is also significant because they soak up and radiate heat. What they do do well, though, is they tend to slop water really well. So they tend to be, you know, really good soils in regions that, you know, tend to have a bit more moisture. But, and then they also are phylloxera resistant. So, you know, you have a lot of own rooted material there. So you, on volcanic soils, you tend to get, you know, you know, slightly lower yields of really dense extracted powerhouse kinds of wines. There are all sorts of factors that, you know, mitigate that, though.

Volcanic soil tends to be, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, be found on volcanoes. Volcanoes are mountains. As such, you know, you get elevation there. And the fact that, you know, you get at elevation lower temperatures, you know, is a moderating influence for the sake of those more fertile otherwise soils. So there are a lot of variables. But, you know, for me, you know, you get more voluptuous fuller fruited wines with, you know, thicker skinned grapes on volcanic soils, broadly speaking. Was that good? That's wonderful. Great, great. Let's move on, though. I'm really excited for these last two wines. And these are not Alianico, although there is a bit of Alianico in the Skiowski here. And we're circling back. So we briefly referenced the Romans earlier.

We'd be remiss if we did not shed a tear for Pompeii in the course of this lesson, because Pompeii was, for better or worse, a Bacchanalian paradise. They loved their wine in Pompeii. They traded in a lot of the local wine in Pompeii, a lantern among them. But they also brought in wine from places like Crete and throughout the Mediterranean and sold it themselves. This is the remains of a wine market in Pompeii. And because in, you know, 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted and encased the city and its inhabitants and its vines in a layer of ash. You know, these ancient wine markets are probably the most important wine markets in the world. They're perfectly preserved. So you can imagine yourself as a, you know, Roman citizen sidling up to this bar.

And, you know, you would have gotten a ladle full of wine from whatever emperor they happen to uncover here, which I think is super cool. And actually, there's a lot of work that has gone into recently trying to recreate the wines of ancient Vesuvius and Mastroberdino in particular, the most interesting man in the world. Piero Mastrodino was. Enlisted to, by the Italian government, recreate some of the great kinds of old Roman wines of the era, and that is hugely fascinating to me. So the state gave him some money and two of the grapes we're considering here are two of the grapes that were likely to have been planted in and around Pompeii once upon a time. And the folks at Mastroberdino had tried to plant both of them on the very vineyard sites that were encased in ash.

And, you know, how do they know this? You ask? The vines themselves were encased in ash just like, you know, the horrifying, you know, kind of, you know, in the moment of agonizing death, you know, kind of ash sculptures, you know, the vines, you know, were in the same position. And so there's genetic material there to study. And they divide. So the two grapes that we have here, one called Peri-Paluma, which is more commonly known as Pietirosa. Both synonyms, one meaning dove's foot for the sake of the Ischian, which is an island, I'll show you the map again. The other, Pietirosa, just means red feet, but refers to the fact that the grape stems tend to redden as they ripen. So you get these grapes attached to clusters that are red and very, you know, evocative, poetical.

But Pietirosa is one of those grapes, Likewise, I'm going to, this is really a challenging grape to pronounce, Schiaschinozo, Schiaschinozo, I had to take a breath there, Schiaschinozo, which is the most famous grape of a different region that we'll talk over in just a second. But those two grapes, which tend to produce lighter wines in Alianaca, they tend to produce, you know, more Gamay-like, kind of like strawberry fruit, red berry fruit inflected wines, than the wines. of you know, Taurasi or certainly Alianaca di Petruri. But these two wines essentially went into the blend that Mastro Verdi, you know, ultimately crafted as this wine that was a perfect exemplar of, you know, what the citizens of Pompeii would have consumed. And this is one of those vineyards in the shadow of Pompeii, and this is the vines as they're ripening.

And I can't think of a more, you know, evocative, beautiful image. Historically, these vines probably would have been trained in pergolas, as opposed to the neat vineyard rows that you see here. Historically, the wine that was made from them would have been very different than the wine we drink or the wine that you are drinking at home to this very date. That is because it was made in much more kind of much less hygienic conditions and it tended to be watered down and tend to be something that people drink throughout the day as a source of hydration. Tend to be lower in ABV. So, you know, we're drinking a stylized version as such of the ancient wine, but we are drinking, you know, wine from the same grapes that, you know, is a through line for the sake of 2,000 years worth of history.

And I think that's, you know, hugely exciting rather. I'm going to pull up the map again and I want to highlight these two regions as we taste through these two wines and I'll gather my breath and take a sip myself. Well, Zoe takes you through her tasting notes on these two particular offerings, but we are going to start in Sannio with the deep breath Schiacinoso. It is 85% Schiacinoso and 15% Alianico. This comes from a really lovely woman, Alexia Cappellino Perlingueri. Oh, wow. We're falling apart here at the Perlingueri, Perlingueri, and she's awesome. She is an investment banker herself from Milan, but she managed to resist the urge to build a monument to modern architecture. She had a really cool villa to take over.

It's none, you know, the less ostentatious in its own right, but a little less modern. But she revived the estate in cooperation with her mother and that's in this region Sannio and the other one from Ischia and I'll pull up photos of that because it's cartoonishly beautiful. I'm going to pull up a picture of Alexia and her mother because they are adorable and awesome, fierce kind of protectors of the viticulture heritage of this region. Zoe, the Schiacci for you. What did you enjoy about that wine? How would you compare it to the Aleianico that we have tasted throughout this last year? I really enjoyed the Schiacci. I thought that the 15% of the Aleianico, like you can totally tell how it just baffled me.

Brings in that darker fruit and a little bit of that black pepper, which is really fun but it's so soft and elegant. The ice had bright acid, ripe red fruit, it's even tart in terms of complexity of the fruit, zippy and floral, just delicious! I thought that your comparison to Beaujolais in both of the wines in this pack was like spot on, particularly in comparison to what Campania is usually known for with the reds. Yeah, but there's kind of different shapes and sizes of Beaujolais for me, this Kiosk is more of like a brewery style so it's more that or like a village style Beaujolais is more that, like easy drinking style or côte de brewery style where you know it's a little fleshier, it's more of a bistro wine.

Where I think the Perry Paluma more than like Crew Beaujolais, a little more Morgoni, a little more kind of bloody. And irony, what did you get with this particular wine? So, this is the Perry Paluma, which is, you know, literally like the claw of the dove or pigeon. Um, I refer to those kinds of red stems a hundred percent Pitea Rosa. Uh, it is also the grape; uh, it should be said in Lacima Christi, which is the ultimate uh um kind of Vesuvian um volcanic wine. What do you think of this one, as it compared to the uh Sciassi for the folks that uh purchased this two back? So um, I thought that the fruit was a little bit more like candy than jamming quality, but without that weight that I usually associate, it didn't go to a confectionary place.

Oh, that is gorgeous. Yeah, sorry to do this to you all. I know it's actually it's a really beautiful day in DC. I hope it's an equally beautiful day, um, wherever, you know, you are drinking your wine. But, uh, we can't, we can't compete with this. It's just unfair, um, you know. It's bringing an IQ gun fight. This is Ischia, um, it uh is not as um overrun with Tauruses as Capri, um, it is equally in the Bay of Naples. Uh, it is preposterously gorgeous. The vineyards are preposterously steep. Um, it should be said they have to use these little vineyards, they have to use these little vineyards, they have to use the many different vineyards and they should be uh what You need the uh interesting thing about D Cafe are actually that is, that the vineyards are an awesome background to the development that they really represent unless you look with your personal collection and think 'oh I don't want to look', that's it, I don't want wit, I want to think about this, I don't want to care too much, I don't want to be thinking no time to put the tongue in it, I want to find out my mind again, so I think that's something I'm going to refer to as a great wine, no perhaps our vintage trophy or anything like that. That's a huge Kuma campaign, eye distinct within Italy which you know is the beauty of Italy, you know.

You know, we've covered it; you know, for the sake of three weeks, we haven't even scratched the surface; you know, there is, there are more grapes; there are more small corners of Italy to study um than uh anyone has a lifetime for and that is the beauty of of the country and you know there are more ischias to discover too you know um it is a magical place um you know from one corner of the country to the next you know there's more diversity here in terms of the styles of wine than anywhere else on earth um and and you know I think Italians are um uh Italians are they're they're fatalistic I think Neapolitans in particular are fatalistic.

people um but they are you know deeply invested in in their culture um and you know uh Italy is a country without a lot of you know natural resources um you know in a conventional sense in terms of precious metals or you know petroleum etc but you know the people the culture that they have developed over centuries and millennia you know that is their their greatest uh natural resource and really you know awesome uh way um and you know for those of us that love wine it is exciting to see um smaller producers uh really leaning into that um let's get to questions as though I wanted to you know finish with some deeper thoughts Here, um, uh very briefly before we toast because I know Heidi will, uh, just own me if we don't, if we don't toast, um, but uh, I thought it was you know particularly cool for the sake of these these last wines and we talked about, uh, Iannico, um, you know having you know uh a a deeper history than any other, uh, grape and, uh, you know you know you know you know there's some truth to that although it is a bit dubious, um, but you know for me tasting these two wines, um, you know which truly are varietals that were cultivated, um, you know by uh the Romans, uh, in the latter days, um, of you know the the empire, um, it speaks to this you know through line in human history or at least you know through line uh for the sake of western history um in terms of enjoyment of wine and this you know continuity of uh you know a set of human desires a need to break bread with one another a need to uh enjoy um good food um and good wine and a need to celebrate you know what is fleeting uh in life what is mortal um I'm gonna quote Pliny the elder here Pliny um actually died uh during uh the eruption uh that consumed uh Pompeii and and one of his uh most famous silver caps is that uh hope is the pillar that holds up the world hope is the dream of a waking man so cheers to us all alone together as always uh so What do you have for us, uh, for the sake of questions? What do you think the Ieanico pair is best with?

I want like dusty meats um we had um uh the Hakers um two of our most uh loyal um students uh join us uh last night and they were talking about this like sausage of the month club um that they uh participate in um and I'm uh hugely uh jealous of their sausage of the month at the moment um I really want hard salty cheese so I sent around a picture of uh Caciocavallo which is like the quintessential like farmer's cheese um of of the region of of Basilicata in particular and it's like you know you hang it from the eaves of you know your shepherd's Shack, um, and you know, uh, you know occasionally some of the wines, the cheese of the region would have been, you know, smoked, uh, over a fire.

You know, uh, you want salt, you want smoke, you want, you know, richer, um, fattier foods and cuisines. Um, I think on the vegetable side of the ledger, I really like what Tuesday Tim said for the sake of that, like charred sweet potato situation, you know. I really want to char the hell out of a lot of veg, you know. I want to oblivion, you know, a lot of root veg, um, throw some smoke at, at, some vegetables as well, um. You know, I think, well it actually kind of pisses me off that you know people you know look at a wine like this or alianico and say you know it only really works with you know meats and cheese um you know food is is much more varied than that wine is much more varied than that um you know I think it's you know important to pair with you know all sorts of different cuisines and and you know wine pairings are much more fluid than people will commonly give them credit for so um you know I think you want hearty fare be it be it you know meat or veg but I think it can work equally well with both yeah Josh and Rachel are having it with fennel sausage right now I'm quite jealous raise the roof Guys, nicely done! Um, how tall do those vines get? Um, it looked like they were at least taller than the Italian man, but he was probably yeah, yeah, so I mean five two, yeah, I can't I can pull that up, uh, so, so, uh, wow, deep we are.

Well, I hope that you know I, I would be honored if there are, um, companions, uh, basilic, basilic cotton joining us, uh, I hope we haven't offended any of you, um, it should be said though that height, uh, is not, um, you know one of the genetic, uh, gifts that the southern Italian people, in particular, uh, possess, um, uh, I'm gonna guess that he's a solid like five three at least, so, so, I'm gonna say that that is like a a 10 foot. uh you know uh you know at least like a like a three I mean however many meters that is um you know situation uh but you know tall ass vines and typically you know you would be harvesting on ladders um and you know it's really ingenious um it comes out of you know this um ideal of maximizing you know the potential of your land um and you know the the cuisine in this corner of the world it's it's the cucina povera it's like poor people's food you know it is rooted in ingenuity you know it's you know bread and and oil and wine you know it's the food of the heart and you know what could be more elemental and you know satisfying And poetic than that, um, and I think a lot of people who love food, you know, come around to that, um, and you know it's something that I've always loved about this region.

The other thing too that people, you know, commonly miss is that, you know, to the extent that we fetishize wine and, you know, people lay it down or treat it as an investment opportunity, that flies in the face of any Southern Italian tradition. You know, wine is part of fabric of the meal; everybody's uncle makes wine. It is not, you know, this you know special rarefied thing. And that is the love that you know I encourage you all to to bring to wine; there's, you know, great. quote Andre Simon who's this um you know French come English wine merchant said a man has died um too young if he has wine left in his cellar and you know that couldn't be more true you know wine wine you know is worth laying down for a special day is fucking for drinking you know if you don't enjoy it you know on a you know kind of immediate sensual pure level you're missing the boat you know and then I think if you don't enjoy it with food you're equally missing the boat you know the one elevates the other um which is actually a great uh segue for the sake of our next week's lesson uh which is devoted wine pair um so um I sent around That email already, I'm equally surprised actually. I got home and my wife got the email and she was shocked that I sent out um, the class invite as early as I did, but I wanted to because um, the next uh, session um, of our class, our 31st lesson uh, benefits an amazing organization called Active Minds uh, they're the preeminent um, uh kind of uh, American uh, organization devoted to um mental health among young people um, they actively work on college campuses to destigmatize um, uh, you know particularly um, you know the idea of receiving mental health care and um, that couldn't be more important at any time but particularly um, in this time and I'm really stoked to um offer our next lesson kind of as a fundraising vehicle for them and equally excited to focus on food and wine so we're taking a different kind of more analytical approach for the sake of that but um you know it feels very consistent with what we're doing here because you know in southern Italy you know they they will you know drink just wine but you know more often than not people don't just break out wine like if you're just drinking on on you know if you're just flying solo and having an apparel you're gonna have something like vermouth um if you're drinking after a meal you're gonna have A digestivo, but typically, wine is kind of... you know, is, is, you know, part of the fabric of the meal; you know, it's not something that you just kind of like fetishize for its own sake. It is equally agricultural and food stuff. Sorry, I went on a rant. What else you got? So, that's fine, totally... Um, when you were speaking before about using wine as an investment property, um, what are some of the benefits of using wine as an investment property, and what are some of the egalitarian versus museum... analogy where wine should be something that is like a book in a library where everybody checks it out, and it's very egalitarian versus the museum. Where something's in a case box and you don't touch it and don't experience it, which I think is one of the best things I've heard you say, anyway. Um, one last question:

um, I was wondering if you could speak to global warming having more vines cover more of the fruit? It's actually been a preventative measure, and I was wondering if you could speak to that. Um, I mean there are a lot of things at work, I think people underestimate the extent to which uh Campania is... you know so I should say let's start off this answer by saying that Italy is hugely mountainous and um you know global warming is real, it is something that winemakers um you Know, worry about and are confronting vintage images of um and as much as it is a problem you know from south to north uh in terms of latitude, um it is equally a problem of elevation, um you lose about a degree Celsius for every hundred meters or so I always up that calculation but you know, you get you, you go higher, um you know it gets colder, um so in as much as you know, uh, you want to have some of this either the overland or the low sea urchins. You can kind of move further away from the equator. You can also move further away from sea level. And the great fear is in regions where there's no room to do that. In Italy, there's a shit ton of room to do that because it is incredibly mountainous. I name-dropped the ski runs earlier, but there are a lot of corners of the Apennine range here of the ancient volcano Volturi that are currently uncultivatable for the sake of vines that in coming generations will hold the greatest vineyards that Italy has to offer. So in as much as people are going north, they're also going up, and that will always be an opportunity that is available in regions like this because they are so mountainous.

And I think we think of Naples, Amalfi, et cetera, as these really Southern Mediterranean hotspots, but you go a mere, a mere hour to inland, and again, you have to wear a sweater at night in August. And that's what's so cool, what's so fascinating about a lot of these places. I would equally say that a lot of the things that Campania got docked for historically were less about Campania and more about the way wine was made there. So historically, it would have been the wines that came out of Campania outside of a few, you know, blessed enclaves and, you know, privileged producers like Massa Veradino, you know, they would have been bulk wines from cooperatives, and there was no incentive to limit yields.

And, you know, so people didn't limit yields and you ended up with dilute juice that made, you know, bulk wine. That was unremarkable. You know, that Campania is an amazing region with, you know, all sorts of diversity in terms of landscapes and like vineyard expositions and soil types and stuff like that. So there's no reason that they can't make great wines, you know, in, you know, these, you know, small corners of the region that historically only make bulk wine. It just has everything to do with, you know, investment and, you know, bringing in people that are willing to do the hard work and have the money to do the hard work on the ground to elevate the quality of the wines in the region.

And fortuitously, you know, there are more and more people, you know, with the means and the desire to do so. And I think what's exciting too, you know, you saw, you know, for the sake of Alexia, for the sake of Elena is actually a husband and wife team. You know, there are a lot of women in the mix as well, which historically wouldn't have been the case in Southern Italy. And, you know, that's equally exciting. Even our most interesting man in the world, Piero, he has two daughters. So I think like the next generation, so we're not gonna have a motorcycle riding 11th, you know, if we do have a motorcycle riding 11th generation, it's gonna be the most interesting woman in the world. So I think that's super cool. And I think, you know, we should all toast to that. So cheers to you all. Thank you so much for joining us as ever for this lesson. I'll move on to one food next week. I hope you have a wonderful Sunday.