June 24 Italian Wine Club: Campania

CAMPANIA

The ‘shin' of Italy’s boot, Campania is one of the country’s oldest wine regions (the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines all planted grapes here), anchored by its capital city, Naples. The name is derived from the Latin Campania Felix meaning ‘happy land or  ‘fertile countryside’ - and while not affluent in the pecuniary sense (it ranks 18th out of 20 Italians regions in GDP), Campania is flush with the stuff most of us conjure when we contemplate Italy. Naples, the country’s third largest city (after Rome and Milan) is the historic capital of Baroque style,  the cradle of pizza and pasta,  home to Europe’s largest old town center (a UNESCO world heritage site) and some 500 domed churches dating back to the early Christian era. It sits in the shadow of  Mt. Vesuvius, an active volcano whose 79 AD eruption created the famous ruins of Pompeii, and splashes into the Gulf of Naples, populated by the postcard islands of Capri, Ischia, and Procida.  The city remains a vibrant culinary, cultural, and artistic hub today, with more Michelin starred restaurants than any other place  in Italy, world famous palaces, museums, and public art, including street murals and celestial metro stations.

Venture outside Naples and Campania continues to astonish. There’s the famous Amalfi coast - 34 of Italy’s most fabled miles, where the towns of Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi itself, and Ravello stipple brightly coloured dwellings in, around and down the crags of jagged cliffs that pierce the azure brushstrokes of Tyrrhenian Sea and sky. Head further inland and you’ll discover no less eye-popping landscapes composed of verdant forests, hills, valleys, and mountains. 

And everywhere, there are grape vines. Five provinces comprise Campania: Napoli, Avellino, Benevento, Caserta, and Salerno, and they all produce wine. Viticulture has flourished in the region’s abundant sunshine, hot and dry summers, mild winters, volcanic soil, and cool sea and mountain breezes since antiquity. The legendary Roman tipple Falernian for instance, ostensibly gifted by the wine god Bacchus to local farmer Falernus and famous enough in its day for several ancient sources to extol the 121 BC vintage in particular, comes from Campania. And if now  no one can agree on its precise recipe, that’s in part because the region continues to host a feast of native varieties that date back to the ancients and are found virtually nowhere else. 

This month we are focusing on one of the more obscure, a white grape called Coda di Volpe, which translates to ‘tail of the fox’, and so titled on account of its bushy, pendulous clusters. For centuries though, it was known as Falerno, as it was thought to be at least part of the source material for Falernian, giving it as much claim to the title of Italian Ur-Vine as any of its (slightly) more well known coevals like Falanghina or Fiano. Our winemaker here, Raeffalo Troisi of Valdeperti, was in fact the first in the world to bottle a single varietal Coda di Volpe. 

Another variety rumored to be part of Falernian’s farrago is the red grape Aglianico, which remains Campania’s calling card today. Full bodied and late ripening enough that it cannot be grown any farther north, Aglianico is sometimes known as the ‘Barolo of the South’ due to its elegant tannins and aging potential. Indeed, Irpinia, the east-central area of Campania near Avellino where both of this month’s wines are grown and made, has weather, terroir and vegetation very similar to Piedmont, Barolo’s home in the North. Taurasi is the DOCG within Irpinia practically synonymous with Aglianico (though Aglianico di Vulture, from the bordering Basilicata region is also great) and, as its name suggests, the location of our red producer this month, Contrade di Taurasi. This bottling is 100% Aglianico from declassified Taurasi fruit, robust and age-worthy but with a freshness compatible with the Bay Area’s version of summer. 

1. In an upright blender, combine half of the beans and all of the vegetable stock. Blend this on high until completely smooth. Set aside.
2. Set a large, deep skillet over medium heat. Pour in the olive oil and swirl it around. Place the sliced veggie sausages into the skillet and spread them out into a single layer. Brown the sausage pieces completely on one side and flip over. Brown the other side and then transfer them to a plate. This whole process should take 6-7 minutes.
3. Return the skillet to medium heat. If you need to add more olive oil, drizzle it in. Add the shallots and sauté until very soft and translucent, about 5-6 minutes. If they are browning too fast, turn the heat down. To the skillet, add the sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, nutritional yeast, dried oregano, and chillies. Stir for about a minute.
4. Add the remaining non-blended white beans to the skillet and stir. Season with salt and pepper. Pour in the puréed white bean and vegetable stock mixture and stir. Bring this to a boil and simmer until slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar and kale and stir it up into the beans until the kale is wilted. The mixture should be quite thick at this point! Season with salt and pepper again if necessary.
5. Add the browned veggie sausage back into the skillet and stir it up a bit. Serve the veggie sausage and white bean skillet immediately with crusty bread, vegan “parmesan” and extra ground chillies or chili crisp.