“Otherwise,” he says, looking over his vineyards from a winery terrace, “you are just drinking alcohol.”
Aglianico, not known for its perfection or nuance, typically makes high-octane wines of tannic power and rusticity. But a new generation of winemakers has helped change that image over the past 20 years. Moio and Quintodecimo have been important players in that change.
A conversation with Moio is like a glass of one of his wines. Those wines combine the local, southern spice and his interpretation of his
terroirs with an overall feeling of bone-dryness and balance that makes me think “French.”
Moio studied primarily in Burgundy, where he earned a Ph.D. for his work on the chemistry of aromas and flavors in wine and food. His bestselling 2016 Italian wine book,
“The purpose of wine is to give pleasure … sensations,” says Antonio Caggiano. (Robert Camuto) By Feb 17, 2021
Antonio Caggiano’s winery at the edge of the Italian hilltop town of Taurasi is a temple to his irrepressible creativity.
First there are his medieval-looking cellars that wind under his winery with catacomb-like tunnels and barrel rooms on five descending levels. These were designed by Caggiano and his son and built by Caggiano’s construction company nearly 30 years ago using stones repurposed from ancient buildings destroyed by an earthquake.
Then there are the furnishings: geometric hanging lamps he fashioned from barrel hoops, along with chairs and tables he made from barrel staves.
It can result in a wine losing its primary fruit characters and developing a brown hue.
But for certain styles of wine, controlled oxidation – and also what some would call ‘micro-oxidation’ – encourages desirable characteristics to develop, such as more complex flavours and less astringency.
When the wine is exposed to the air for too long, alcohol is first oxidised to acetaldehyde, which smells like bruised apples at high concentration levels.
It finally becomes acetic acid, when the wine is literally turned into vinegar.
The enemy of wine?
Over-exposure to oxygen in air is a constant threat throughout winemaking.
It begins when the grape berries are crushed; the freshly released phenolic compounds from the seed, skin and stem are ‘among the most readily oxidised wine constituents’, according to research on
OIV - Understanding the natural wines phenomenon oiv.int - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from oiv.int Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.