Finding Balance in Extremes: Campania Turns the Corner of Consistency

While the extremes of recent vintages in Campania are putting its vineyards under strain, they are also bringing out its astonishing diversity. This region, in the southwest of Italy and centered around Naples and the Amalfi Coast, can bring on sensory overload and leave you feeling dazed. Yet it's a place that offers such a broad palette of colors on the wine spectrum that the right nuances can be found under almost any set of weather conditions.

We recently tasted 262 wines from Campania that capture the finest of these nuances in a region as complex as it is multifaceted. In Irpinia, for example – a cold, not merely cool, pocket within Campania – “climate change is bringing the aglianico harvest forward to mid-October rather than early November,” explained Antonio Capaldo, the CEO at the Feudi di San Gregorio winery.

This should benefit the grapes in terms of consistency – a quality that has not traditionally been the region’s strong suit. Add to this the softer, more balanced and restrained cellar approach being taken with aglianico by the likes of the Di Meo winery in Irpinia, Luigi Maffini in Cilento and Marisa Cuomo in the Amalfi Coast, and a renaissance for the grape appears to be on its way.

The 2021 vintage, now being released by many producers, has remarkable drive, and is much different from the vintages that came before it and after in terms of fruit density and concentration but also tannin quality and balance. According to Capaldo, 2021 was a “memorable” year.

The Marisa Cuomo Costa d’Amalfi Ravello Riserva 2021, for one, is intense and almost intoxicating, with layered floral aromas, focused cassis, blueberries, aromatic herbs and stony minerality. Full-bodied, elegant and flowing, it shows ripe, velvety tannins and crisp, long acidity, with a leafy touch adding complexity.

Campania remains at the center of a debate over whether it is primarily a white- or red-wine region. But its varietal and geographic diversity is so vast that this binary approach feels reductive. Each grape–terroir pairing seems to find its own logic, its own stylistic and gastronomic occasion – in short, its own personality.

The same aromas can be found in the glass among the flowers and aromatic herbs of Ettore Sammarco’s vineyards perched above the Amalfi coast: falanghina, biancolella, ginestra, pepella, ripolo, all driven by a taut, saline wind rising from the sea.

The smoky, citrusy notes of Catalanesca del Monte Somma, grown on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius; the salt and incense of Caprettone, also from Vesuvius; the pepper of Pellagrello from the Volturno valley; and minerality that shifts from zone to zone: sulfurous in falanghina from the Campi Flegrei, chalky in fiano from Cilento, peaty in greco from Irpinia.

Then there is biancolella from Ischia, which is the largest island in the Bay of Naples; coda di volpe and casavecchia from Pontelatone; and piedirosso from the Campi Flegrei, expressed in a peppery, smoky, light-bodied style recalling the crunch of certain cool-climate syrahs best enjoyed young.

In Irpinia, I held a piece of yellow rock – sulfur – with the same mineral, sulfury aroma found in greco and fiano, but without the fruit. In Cilento, I admired the forested hectares surrounding Maffini’s vineyards, nearly isolated from the rest of the region in a remarkable purity that, aided by the limestone outcrops on which the town of Trentinara stands, heightens the wines’ tension and finesse.

This enormous diversity helps, but does not solve the challenges of difficult vintages such as 2022 and especially 2023. The former was hot, “with rain and hail in May and June,” Capaldo explained, “followed by 60 days without rain, which is more than exceptional for Irpinia.

Added Roberto Di Meo, owner of his eponymous estate: “Early harvesting has become a constant and will be in the coming years.”

The Di Meo Fiano di Avellino Alessandra 2015, now being released, is supercomplex and layered, showing chalky minerality and a leesy character, with ferns, subtle linden blossom, restrained candied citrus and elegant peaty depth on the nose. Medium- to full-bodied, it has weight and concentration, a silky texture and vibrant tension with a sleek finish.

In Irpinia, freshness is not the issue because the climate is cold. The Di Meo estate is releasing extraordinary late releases from the 1990s, wines that “even then struggled to reach 12 percent alcohol,” Di Meo said – an ode to freshness.

And when altitude or climate do not dominate, there is always the soil. “Our fianos average a pH of 3.10,” said Luigi Maffini, who runs his own winery and whose wines carry a  clear chalky imprint from limestone soils.

The Luigi Maffini Fiano Cilento Pietraincatenata 2021 is sleek, with intoxicating aromas of candied lemons, lemon peel, fresh broom flowers, Mediterranean herbs and a medicinal note. It’s silky and smooth, almost oily, with subtle toasty depth, fully integrated oak and a zesty, toasty finish – fancy and refined.

In 2023, however, downy mildew was dramatic. The wines appeared very light and diluted. “We lost up to 80 percent of production, so you harvest whatever remains," said Capaldo. "That’s why the wines can seem fragile and diluted.”

Among stylistic outsiders, special mention goes to Raffaele Pagano’s winery, Joaquin. The Joaquin Taurasi Riserva della Società 2016 is a great postmodern red – complex and positively evolved, full-bodied and deep, with aromatic herbs and cigar leaf, velvety yet vivid, and a Port-like minerality.

Among younger producers and whites, Capasso is one to look for. It’s a high-altitude chardonnay vinified in an exquisitely Burgundian style that is finding its own identity.

If Italy is the homeland of indigenous varieties, Campania may be their fullest expression, with rich nuance across styles and far more freshness than one might expect from a Mediterranean region in the south – shaped by a patchwork of altitude, proximity to the sea and mineral soils. It’s a place to discover through both reds and whites, best enjoyed young, yet with nothing to envy in terms of aging potential.

– Aldo Fiordelli, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. 

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