Aglianico

You would have thought it would be a short trip. All we wanted to do was get from Marco Polo Airport in Venice, Italy to Centro Storico in Bari, part of Puglia in the heel of the country. It turns out that flights areen't readily available and we didn't have 20 hours to spare, so we drove, almost entirely along the Adriatic shoreline for 8 hours or so and then inland to Basilicata that sits in what you might consider the arch of the boot. It's okay; it was a beautiful ride with the top down and the warm breezes making it feel like summer.

We're in Basilicata to drink wines made from Aglianico. What's that? It's a prodigiously tannic red grape. Do you like to chew your wine? Do you like those big, bold Cabernets and Barolos? The tannins in Aglianico are even bigger, denser, thicker.

The weather in Basilicata during growing season is consistent in the summer -- very warm and very dry. This causes lower yields, but bigger wines.

I don't know what it says about the men of the Roman Empire (the history books tell me that the women were not allowed to drink wine unless they were told to), but Aglianico likely made the first wines that were sold or bartered. And, in those days, they would not have gently aged or decanted the wine. Those wines might have put hair on their palms.

All that said, made well and aged, Aglianico produces a very big, but very expressive wine with some unique notes rarely found in other wines.

Today, we have uncorked 6 bottles for our tasting. We've decanted each for about 90 minutes before sampling. While sitting around telling stories about the biggest wines we've ever tasted, we can smell the aromas coming from the decanters. We get notes of barbequed large game, white pepper, and black fruit. These give us excellent hints at what to expect when we taste our wines.

As our wines are poured, we note that the deep, dark wines coat the glass with "legs" indicative of high alcohol content and neither an indicator of high nor low quality. On the palate, we get firm, chewy tannins with that same smoky big game (think wild boar or venison, for example), white pepper, black cherry, and spiced black plum. 

Our host has also brought us a surprise -- three more of his favorite Aglianico, all well decanted and 10, 15, and 20 years old, respectively. The tannins have softened, the fruit has dissipated somewhat, and the smoke has evolved into notes of forest floor.

In either case, pair your Aglianico with big game, southwestern BBQ, or rib-eye slow-cooked on a smoker.