Aglianico del Vulture Wine Country

The extinct volcano Monte Vulture, which rises to 1,326 metres southeast of Melfi, is the source of the volcanic soils that give the Aglianico del Vulture DOC its distinctive character. This is one of the great red wines of southern Italy — tannic, full-bodied, capable of ageing for decades — and it is still relatively unknown outside Italy, which keeps the prices reasonable.

The wine country spreads across a dozen or so hilltop villages around the volcano, with the best producers concentrated around Rionero in Vulture and Barile (where the cellars are cut into the volcanic rock). Local estates open for tastings and vineyard visits; the wines are also available in Melfi's restaurants and enotecas at prices that would be laughable in Tuscany for equivalent quality.

For a proper introduction to the zone, the village of Barile is worth visiting for its tufa-cave cellars and the Albanian (Arbëreshë) cultural heritage of its inhabitants — descendants of 15th-century Albanian refugees who have preserved their language and customs for five centuries.

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Aglianico is one of the oldest grape varieties cultivated in Italy — Greek colonists are believed to have brought it to the south in the 8th century BCE, and the name itself may derive from "Hellenico" (Greek). The volcanic soils of Monte Vulture, with their mineral richness and excellent drainage, produce a wine markedly different from Aglianico grown elsewhere in Campania or Calabria: more structured, longer-lived, with a characteristic smoky mineral edge.

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