CANTINA MADONNA DELLE GRAZIE

With winter in full swing (though it oddly feels more like spring here in San Francisco), I racked my brain for what I would like to reach for on cold nights. While thinking this over, I was presented with a long-time favorite grape from a region I usually skim over, despite my enjoyment of its wines. For the first wine club of the year, we will focus on a small winery based in the Southern Italian city of Venosa, one that specializes in one of Italy’s most ancient grapes: Aglianico. This Mediterranean grape, with its rustic tannins, bright acidity (even at high alcohol levels), and rich, brooding volcanic flavors, was the first Italian varietal I truly fell in love with. The grape is perfectly suited to its warm southern Italian environment; its early budding requires a warm, dry spring, as it is susceptible to downy mildew and botrytis, while its incredibly late ripening also demands dry autumn conditions.

The history of Aglianico is cloudy, as most reliable sources believe the grape was brought to Italy by the Greeks sometime between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE. Its origins were originally traced to the city of Phocaea, modern-day Foca in Turkey. The Phocaeans emerged around the 9th century BCE and were among the first to coin their own money. They were also skilled Greek sailors, undertaking long sea voyages and trading with other peoples of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. They traveled as far south as Egypt, as far north as the Crimea, and as far west as Spain. The name of this variety most likely comes from either the ancient city of Elea on the Lucanian Coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, or from ancient Greek ancestors who took the name Hellenici and may have disembarked on the Ionian-Lucanian coast. (This opinion can be supported by the hypothesis that, originally, the name Aglianico was Hellenico, Eleanico, or even Ellanico.) The change from Ellenico or Ellanico to Aglianico may refer to a time when Aragonese power included the Kingdom of Naples. In fact, the step from Ellenico or Ellanico to Aglianico could have been rather short, considering that the double “L” in these appellations, in Spanish, has the same sound as the group “gli” in Aglianico in Italian. The grape was highly prized for centuries due to its ability to age, though by the 1970s quality had started to become shaky as plant material was chosen more for quantity than quality in some regions. Still, great strides in quality have been made in recent decades.

While most may know the long-lived wines of Taurasi in Campania, this month we turn our gaze to Cantina Madonna delle Grazie, named for a nearby church, and the wines made by the Latoracca family in Basilicata. Based in the ancient Roman city of Venosa, within the borders of the DOC and DOCG of Aglianico del Vulture, the Latoracca family’s 8.5-hectare (21-acre) farm sits at mid-elevation (vineyards in both Aglianico del Vulture and Taurasi can be planted as high as 700m). The farm has been cultivated since the early 1900s, with most grapes historically sold to the local cooperative. This changed in 2003 when Giuseppe Latoracca, along with his wife Immacolata and sons Michele and Paolo, both of whom hold degrees in oenology, and Michele an additional degree in agronomy, realized the wealth of their old vines and the diversity of their plant material, which is not commonly seen, and led them to begin making their own wine. The wines show a more elegant structure than one would expect from this noble grape, and a white wine is even produced, the only one I’ve ever seen.

Alla Nostra!

Justin Malesheetz, Fillmore Wine Buyer

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