Cheers To The New Year: January 2023

THE GREAT WINES OF CAMPANIA

We take pride in our wine portfolio and have always considered it an essential part of our business, by itself and in accompanying all the great meals in our restaurants and markets.

Being one of the largest importers of fine wines from all over the world, we understand the responsibility to educate. We also love diving deep into our European wine heritage that is deeply rooted in the traditional winemaking of our home country, Argentina.

So let’s start the new year with that in mind. This time we are off to Campania, the southern Italian wine region which forms the “shin” ofItaly’s boot and whose largest city is Naples. The region’s name comes from Campania Felix, a Latin phrase roughly meaning “happy land,”which says a lot about this beautiful place on Earth.

Planet Earth opened up in Campania to provide us with some of the most mineral soil to grow vines and vegetables, giving both a matchless and distinctly powerful flavor profile. We encourage you to try two traditional and outstanding red wines and white wines from Campania by producer Terredora Di Paolo.

Aglianico is a native red wine grape to southern Italy, it has an excellent tannic structure that can be a little too concentrated when young, but with the acidity from the volcanic mineral soil, it produces rich and full-bodied red wines that are very age-worthy. It typically has a garnet red color, fading into the beautiful terracotta tones you can find all over the Campania region. Aglianico grapes need Campania’s dry and warm conditions to produce some of Italy’s most famous and well-regarded red wines, like the famous Aglianico del Taburno and the exceptional Taurasi wines DOCG-registered and protected.

Food to combine with these great reds is Rabbit or Chicken in paprika and tomato sauces, grilled red meats, and barbecued Lamb.

Taurasi is a significant and influential Aglianico-based red wine from the Avellino region northeast of Naples.

It can be compared to the big Italian reds from up north, based on the noble Nebbiolo grape in Piedmont, or the Amarone Ripasso’s from the Valpolicella region more in the northeast of Italy. Taurasi can produce a powerful fruit-forward style, altogether a more approachable big red that comes without the wait and also without crushing the bank account quite as much as a Barolo can. A big, full-bodied, ripe red wine, fruit carried along for years by these fantastic mineral components that simply make one of the world’s great red wines to try.

Grilled meat, a cozy fireplace, or the best of both come to mind when opening a bottle of Taurasi.

Greco di Tufo is a white wine DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) in Campania. The name of this flavor is forward, and the delicious white wine varietal speaks very much about its origin. Greco = the Greekand di Tufo = from the village of Tufo and also growing on tuff/tufo, a rock formed by the ashes from volcanic eruptions, the soil that makes all of Campania wines and foods so intense and powerful.

Greco di Tufo is no exception and can be described as Campania’s most prestigious white wine, with aromatic notes of lemon, pears, toasted almonds, and a lingering mineral finish. Falanghina (pictured in the glassine on the right) is another ancient Italian white-wine grape of Greek origin that profits from the warm Mediterranean climate and volcanic soils aroundMount Vesuvius in Campania.

Falanghina has beautiful aromas of citrus blossom and bitter orange, with a slight scent of a sun-flooded pine tree. On the palate, it has apple and ripe pear flavors, always with a spicy mineral note, a straight forward and delicious white wine, powerful enough to be enjoyed outside in a warm climate, poolside, as an aperitif, or with Pizza and seafood dishes.

These can rival the best wines we have tried, complex, fruit-forward, and powerful, just waiting to partner up with many traditional seafood and meat dishes.