Aglianico discovered at VinItaly!
9/4/13 -
(Paolo from Madonna delle Grazie, at VinItaly.)
VinItaly is a gigantic wine trade fair held every April in Verona. To call it gigantic is an understatement – you could never imagine that there were so many wine producers in Italy (there is some wine from other countries, but the fair is at least 90%+ Italian).
For a couple of New Yorkers who are late to their next meeting, traveling across the sprawling fairgrounds is an exercise in frustration as the place fills up and walking becomes like trying to rush through Times Square at 5pm on a nice day; but, as in Times Square, there’s some entertaining stuff to glimpse along the way.
By afternoon a surprising number of visitors are deep in their cups, some forming vaguely menacing scrums singing hooliganish chants, and further gumming up the aisles. Trial and error have proved that the only way to deal with VinItaly is by extensive planning in advance – you really need to have an appointment at any stand where it’s important to taste.
Sometimes research and planning ahead doesn’t work out, as, for instance, when you arrive at a stand to discover it decorated with a twelve-foot-high image of the winery owner striding resplendent through the vines in bespoke tweed, curls flowing in the breeze, ascot just slightly relaxed… Call us snobs, but we’re really keen on winemakers who actually grow the fruit and make the wine, and who don’t really care about forming a cult based on their fine tailoring and general good looks. We tasted the wine, by the way, and it was also pretty glossy.
We had time for a little wandering in the Basilicata pavillion one morning between appointments, and that’s how, after trying a lot of really spoofy Aglianico del Vulture, we met Paolo Latorraca at Madonna delle Grazie.
We like Aglianico, and Monte Vulture, an extinct volcano about 2 hours east of Naples, is (along with Taurasi) widely considered to be the best place to grow the grape, which thrives on rich volcanic soil. Monte Vulture is in Basilicata, the Italian province that forms the instep of the ‘boot’; by Italian terms it’s isolated in the deep south, and is historically one of the poorest regions of Italy. Wine making in the Vulture has gotten a big boost in recent years, but most of the wines are very modern in style, showing heavy influence from new, small oak barrels, and dense, ripe fruit, all of which results in big and somewhat anonymous wines. By contrast, the Madonna delle Grazie wines are vibrant, mineral-driven, and very distinctive. That was our first impression, confirmed by a long second visit at their stand the next day, when we were able to taste and talk at leisure with Paolo. At Madonna delle Grazie they are farming organically and are working very well in the cellar, making fine, low-sulphur wines – more details are below.
