Close readers (especially the Italian wine fans among you) will remember our recent offer of the superstar Italian red “Terra di Lavoro,” and today, we have its cult-wine compatriot from the region of Campania: “Montevetrano.” Like many of the great “super-Tuscans” made further up the Italian peninsula, Montevetrano has long since graduated to one-name status, and any savvy Italian wine buyer can take one look at today’s vintage and price and know we’ve got something special here.
Having just tasted this wine (which, I’m compelled to note, racked up some major acclaim from the critics), I was transported back to my early days at Babbo Ristorante, in New York City, in the early 2000s. My wine list was all-Italian, and as far as the southern end of the peninsula went, Montevetrano already had an outsized reputation. It was one of the few southern Italian reds I could offer a “vertical” selection of, and it was one of my go-to reds for Bordeaux-loving customers who didn’t think Italy had anything to offer them. And I’ll tell you what: I never had to take one back, and many wine lovers got their first taste of the Aglianico grape in the process. Blended as it is here with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, Aglianico lends the dark fruit and deep, iron-shaving minerality to complement the polished fruit and refined tannins of its “Bordeaux” counterparts. It’s an “international” red that nevertheless remains proudly, and identifiably, Italian, and to put it bluntly, I can’t believe it’s available at such a reasonable price. All I can say is, don’t dawdle: This should, if there is any logic in today’s wine world, disappear in an instant!
Named for a castle in the hills outside the Campanian port town of Salerno, Montevetrano is a small estate that had been in Silvia Imparato’s family for years before friends encouraged her to follow her wine dream and revive the vineyards there. Imparato was a professional photographer by trade, but the “friends” in question included prominent Italian wine journalists as well as winemaking brothers Renzo and Riccardo Cotarella; Renzo is the longtime enologist/CEO of Tuscan giant Antinori, while Riccardo is perhaps the most famous “flying winemaker” in Italy. Since the estate’s beginnings in the mid-1980s, Riccardo has been Montevetrano’s consulting winemaker, encouraging Imparato to plant “international” varieties such as Cabernet and Merlot to supplement the native Aglianico. Although other Campanian wines from Aglianico had a little traction internationally—like those from Taurasi, further inland—it was still mostly unknown and unappreciated.
Taking a cue from many of the “super-Tuscans,” Cotarella and Imparato saw some similarities between the soils of coastal Salerno and Bordeaux; although many of Campania’s most famous terroirs are volcanic (Vesuvius; Taurasi), the soils around Montevetrano are described as silty, pebbly loam. The total area under vine has remained small, just five hectares, with annual production of today’s wine topping out at around 2,500 cases (compared to tens of thousands for the typical Left Bank Bordeaux).
Composed of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Aglianico, and 20% Merlot, Montevetrano is aged 12-14 months in French oak barriques, then six months in bottle, before release. In the glass, it displays a dense ruby-black core moving to garnet at the rim. Richly fruited scents of black currant, mulberry, cassis, and cranberry are beautifully complemented by earthy notes of leather, tobacco, licorice, graphite, espresso, and dark chocolate. It is full-bodied but blessed with a seamless, velvety texture; while this wine can be a dark, chunky bomba in its youth, a few years of bottle age have given it dimension, nuance, and incredible length. At least 15 more years of positive evolution are still in store for this 2017, and I wouldn’t hesitate to put it on a table next to some big-ticket Bordeaux reds and see how it fares (I’m guessing well). If enjoying a bottle now, decant it about 60 minutes before serving in large Bordeaux stems with a beautiful grilled ribeye, some medium-rare lamb chops, or richer game birds like squab or duck. You’ll see why this wine attracted the cult following it has. Enjoy!
