Taurasi and the Aglianico grape

I watched Youtube and saw an episode called Discover the wines of southern Italy. It is made by a television companyfrom Ontario Canada and it is very nice and informative. In this episode they go through the wines of southern Italy starting with Sicily and going up into Campania and Puglia.

The good thing about this series is that when they go through the different regions they take time to go through the grape specialties of each region. When talking about Campania the program talked about the grape aglianico which produce red wines of high quality. That gave me the inspiration to try it out.

Taurasi is a DOGC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) area in Campania where the red wines are made aglianico grape. For a normal Taurasi wine it has to be stored at least three years of which one year is in a wooden barrel. For the Taurasi wines I looked at were all from 2008 so they are stored even longer before being sold. It has a very good storage capability.

I got my hands on a Taurasi by producer Feudi Di San Gregorio from 2008. Here the wine had been stored in wooden barrels for 18 months before being bottled. Everything is written in Italian on the label which means it is not made for the Swedish import market. The smell is very nice, cherries and dark berries. The colour is dark almost ruby red and looks pleasing to the eye The taste of dark berrmies and liquorice and an aftertaste that stays in the mouth. A very rich wine with nice tannins and would taste even better if stored for a couple of more years. Definitely need food with this wine. Why not a lamb roast or a red wine risotto?

I will buy several more bottles of this wine for storage and also will try out some more of the other brands. Unfortunately only four at Systembolaget here in Sweden.