The Wines of Campania: Getting Better and Better

BY IAN D’AGATA | NOVEMBER 3, 2016

Campania’s white wines vie with those of Alto Adige and Friuli Venezia Giulia for top spot on Italy’s list of quality whites. And today’s reds from the region are increasingly removed from the old southern Italian stereotype of unclean, overripe and high alcohol wines. 

One of the most positive developments in Italy’s wine scene over the last 30 years has been the total transformation of Campania. It is safe to say that Campania’s wines have never been this good, and the improvements have been due both to a plethora of new and exciting estates run by a passionate and energetic new generation and, increasingly, to moneyed locals who are looking to invest in the region’s wine economy. The presence of a number of outstanding, world-class local grape varieties that grow practically nowhere else and a better understanding of many of the region’s unique—often volcanic—terroirs have also played important roles in the transformation of Campanian wine.

A typical Campanian coast vineyard

The Three Musketeers: Fiano, Greco and Aglianico 

For those who don’t yet grasp the importance of native grapes, let me repeat for the umpteenth time that Fiano was virtually extinct as recently as the 1950s. Is that relevant, you ask. Well, suffice it to say that most experts agree that Fiano is probably Italy’s single greatest native white grape variety, so losing it would hardly have been a smart move. Not by chance, the cultivar is now being studied and grown in places as far removed from Campania as California and Australia. And yet, as recently as the late 1960s, Antonio Mastroberardino, the man who saved Fiano, was still going on record as being unsure about Fiano’s future survival.

Fiano has conquered just about every corner of Campania and is now increasingly planted in Sicily, Basilicata, Puglia and Lazio. But it has become so popular that it has also been planted in more northerly lands, such as Friuli Venezia Giulia. In warmer climates, Fiano tends to produce smoky, fat wines redolent of ripe tropical fruits; by contrast, at higher altitudes and in cooler environments the wines are steely, lean and loaded with nectarine and green apple. In fact, differences can be so striking that some experts have begun to hypothesize that producers may actually be using two different varieties altogether, but there is as yet no scientific evidence to back up this theory.