Wine & Spirits

Campania Comes of Age

Naples Region Draws Kudos or More Than Coastline

    By recent counts, more than one in 10 Americans have some Italian blood, and many trace their roots to Campania—the area around Naples, just south of Rome. Some of our favorite foods (think pizza, calzone and donut-like zeppole) come from this splendid region. So I am pleased to see the local wines, which I have closely followed and rarely seen enough of in the United States, finally getting their due for the extraordinary cornucopia of flavors and aromas they offer from ancient and indigenous vines. The wines from Campania have a rich history: Many of the vines are believed to date back to ancient Greece, and some of the varietal names, such as Greco di Tufo, evoke their roots. The area has experienced incredible renewal over recent decades, as new generations of winemakers pay homage to the past and focus on cultivating the region’s indigenous vines. One producer, Mastroberardino, has even replanted the types of grapevines once found around the ruins of Pompeii, selling the wine under the Villa dei Misteri (Villa of Mysteries) label.
    There are more than 100 commercial wineries in Campania, according to the New York–based Italian Trade Commission. Much of the area is planted to ancient native white varietals, including Greco di Tufo, Fiano di Avellino and Falanghina (none of which are easy to say, but I am hoping that everyone is ready to practice). “The names may seem forbidding, but they are illuminating because there’s a story contained in them,” explains Ray Keifetz, assistant buyer at the Vino! retail shop on College Avenue in Rockridge.
    Keifetz says his location of the four-store chain generally carries about five different wines from Campania at any one time, most of which cost less than $20. The most expensive was an Aglianico, a grape that yields a wine often called the “Barolo of the South” for its intense, heavy-hitting style; when in stock, it is priced at about $30.
    I once saw a license-plate holder that said, “Life is too short to drink Italian whites.” Obviously the owner hadn’t been to Campania. The whites from this hot but thankfully breezy region are often some of the most exciting Italian wines for me and are well balanced with good fruit and acidity. “They have beautiful floral qualities combined with great minerality that reflects the volcanic soil,” says Keifetz. Try them for yourself and seek the fabulous recent vintages of Fiano di Avellino, Falanghina Sannio and Greco di Tufo from Feudi di San Gregorio, or Mastroberardino’s Radici Fiano di Avellino or Falanghina Sannio. “They have body and can stand up to strongly flavored fish with a lot of garlic,” Keifetz notes.
    “The quality [of the wines] is blowing up down there,” says Seth Corr, wine buyer at Oliveto in Rockridge, referring to both the region’s red and white wines. The restaurant offers about six constantly changing wines from Campania, priced from $35 to $120 a bottle. “The spectrum of quality is huge,” Corr explains, pointing out the wines’ common denominator of “sweet fruit with a really good core of acidity.”
    “The wines are very flavorful and savory,” says Robin Shay, export manager for the Americas and Asia for Feudi di San Gregorio from Sorbo Serpico, Italy. He stresses how well these wines pair with the local foods of the area, which have long been revered in the States. “The food had made it abroad, but the wine hadn’t.”
    The success of all the wines from this region can be attributed in part to what Stephenie Harris, import specialist for St. Helena-based Wilson Daniels Ltd., calls “the spice rack of flavors.” According to Harris, not only are these wines able to do battle with the big players, like Barolos and Barbarescos from the north of Italy, they can do so at half the price. A $40 Aglianico, she says, can compete for flavor pound for pound with a $140 Barolo.
    For great bargains on “the Barolo of the south,” look for Feudi di San Gregorio’s Taurasi Riserva Piano di Montevergine, an Aglianico from the prestigious growing region of Taurasi, or Mastroberardino’s Radici Taurasi Riserva or Naturalis Historia, both of which pay homage to the grapes originally cultivated on this estate. Good smaller producers such as Pietracupa are also worth seeking out.
    No matter how hard it may be to find—and pronounce the names of—these wines, I have no doubt you’ll find it worth your while once you’ve tasted them. They really do embody the bounty, balance and bang for the buck of the great, emerging wines of the south of Italy.