18/09/2019
Fontana Vecchia Grave Mora Aglianico del Taburno 2007 DOC
Here comes the English version. So, I feel thankful to have tried this bottle about a year ago. Definitely my best top 3 red wine in my database.
Again, indigenous grape from Taburno of Campania called Aglianico. It has a reputation of being known as ‘Barolo of the South’. When something can linked up with Barolo you know it’s good. However still not too famous to the world for some reason so I am going to talk about it in details.
Aglianico has 3 major production area. Beside Taburno, also from Campania we have Taurasi (most well known Red wine from Southern Italy no doubt) and also Vulture from Basilicata. They all grow Aglianico but with different biotypes - Aglianico Amaro from Taburno, Aglianico Di Taurasi from Taurasi, Aglianico del Vulture from Vulture.
So here comes another question. What is a biotype? To make things simple, you can imagine some grapes went into a process of genetical mutation. Those who undergo this process shares same parents with other brothers, but DNA became different. In addition to adapting to local terroir for ages, these biotypes reveal different characters.
Back to this bottle of wine. 100% Aglianico. On the nose right after I smell it I know I picked the right one. Intense aromas of cherry, plum, wild berries, further on some leather, spice, smoke and minerals. On palate, very full body strong red wine with high acidity. Tannin is strong too but very nicely balanced with the acidity. Not only those aromas are all these, after some times, vanilla, oak smoky and minerals all revealing. Everything was perfectly balanced. Just superbly elegant with a great potential to age for at least 20 - 30 years more.
Geeky Scores: 98/100
Food Pairing: steak florentine, iberico ham, any red meat with fats and oil.