Aglianico, a powerful and elegant Southern Italian wine, features ripe dark cherries, tobacco, and herbs, and is recommended for cellaring to enhance its complexity.
Producer
Mastroberardino
Region
Taurasi, Campania
Country
Italy
Varietal Composition
100% Aglianico
Specifications
2015
Vintage
2037
Drink By
14
%
ABV
Vinification
Hand harvested. Aged 24 months in large Hungarian oak foudres, followed by 30 months of bottle aging.
Occasional wine note
#5 on Wine Spectator's 2023 Top 100! Aglianico is called the Barolo of the South in Italy as it is Southern Italy's most powerful and elegant indigenous grape, and to qualify for the DOCG label, requires extended aging almost as stringent as Barolo. This one is indeed both big and elegant. Ripe dark cherries, tobacco, pepper, with some floral hints, smoke, mineral, and herbs. This has so much going on from start to long finish. It's tough to put down once opened and had a chance to breathe. We recommend cellaring this for a few years as it will get better with age.
What experts say about this wine
96
/
100
James Suckling
Super-elegant but really tight aglianico here with lightly peppery black fruit, colored with inky and spicy notes. With aeration, you move into the herbal zone, with fresh bay-leaf, chai and light rosemary. The palate is medium-to full-bodied and you feel all the aromas pent-up, ready to burst out. The tension here is palpable and this will need several more years before the firm tannins soften, allowing the wine to open up and flood your palate. Still be patient. Try from 2024.
96
/
100
Vinous
The 2015 Taurasi Riserva Radici is elegance personified, captivating with a deeply seductive bouquet that blends black cherries, rose petals and cloves with hints of underbrush, smoky minerals and crushed ashen stone. With each tilt of the glass, it seems to grow in both volume and depth. It unleashes waves of silken textures across the palate, carrying notes of savory cherry sauce, balsam herbs and dark, dark chocolate complicated by earth tones, as red inner florals amass toward the close. While youthfully structured, the 2015 Riserva is almost impossible to put down, mixing sweet tannins with hints of tobacco and dark fruits that seem to last for up to a minute. Bury this in the cellar and reap the rewards, as this balanced beauty is a long-distance runner. The Riserva is refined for thirty months in a combination of 60% forty-eight-hectoliter casks and 40% used barriques.
pairing recommendation
Pork
Black Pepper
Root Vegetables
Hard Cheeses
Cured Meats
96
2015 Mastroberardino Radici Taurasi Riserva DOCG
750
ml
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