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More Details
Winery
Mastroberardino
Vintage: 2012
2012 has, so far been a positive year for wineries around the world. While it may be a little too early to speak of the wines being made in the northern hemisphere, European and North American wineries have already begun reporting that their harvesting season has been generally very good, and are predicting to continue with the kind of successes they saw in 2011. However, 2012 has been something of a late year for France, due to unpredictable weather throughout the summer, and the grapes were ripening considerably later than they did in 2011 (which was, admittedly, an exceptionally early year). French wineries are claiming, though, that this could well turn out to be advantageous, as the slow ripening will allow the resulting wines to express more flavour and features of the terroir they are grown in.
The southern hemisphere has seen ideal climatic conditions in most of the key wine producing countries, and Australia and New Zealand particularly had a superb year, in particular with the Bordeaux varietal grapes that grow there and which love the humidity these countries received plenty of. Also enjoying a fantastic year for weather were wineries across Argentina and Chile, with the Mendoza region claiming that 2012 will be one of their best vintages of the past decade. Similar claims are being made across the Chilean wine regions, where Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon had an especially good year. These two grape varietals also produced characterful wines on the coastal regions of South Africa this year.
Varietal: Aglianico
Aglianico grapes are typically grown in the Campania region of southern Italy, where they have been an important grape varietal since the height of the Roman empire. The Romans adored their deep garnet coloured wines, and the Aglianico grape provided a beautiful colour along with high acid levels and a strong tannin content, which made it wildly popular both then and today. Nowadays, the finest Aglianico wines are usually aged in wood to soften their strong tannins, and this process allows the grapes to reveal their complex flavours of plum and chocolate, along with plenty of pleasing dark fruit and berry aromas. Often, Aglianico grapes are blended with Bordeaux varietals to make a wonderfully balanced wine. The varietal thrives most successfully in hot and dry regions, and has a particular affinity for volcanic soils.
Region: Campania
For over three thousand years now, Campania has been one of Europe's most important and enduring wine regions. A thousand years before the Romans helped spread Italian wines around the known world, Campanian farmers and vintners were experimenting with their vast array of native grape varietals, and producing wines which went down in history due to their quality, their strength of character and their fine aromas and flavors What makes Campania so special? There are, of course, many theories. However, one only has to look at the exceptional volcanic soils, and hot, dry Mediterranean climate of the region in order to begin understanding just why the grapes here grow so well and express so many fine characteristics. This special region has been producing quality wines since time immemorial, and it seems unlikely it will stop doing so any time soon.
Country: Italy
For several decades in the mid to late twentieth century, Italy's reputation for quality wines took a fairly serious blow. This was brought about partly due to lack of regulation in certain regions, and too much regulation in others. This led to several wineries in the beautiful and highly fertile region of Tuscany making the bold move to work outside of the law, which they saw as responsible for the drop in quality in Tuscan wines. They believed that they had the expertise and the generations of experience necessary with which to make truly excellent, world class wines, and set about doing just that. These 'Super Tuscans', as they came to be known, quickly inspired the rest of Italy to improve their produce, and now, Italian wine producers in the twenty-first century are widely recognised to be amongst the best in the world. Regulation and law began to change, and wine drinkers across the globe woke up to the outstanding wines coming out of Italy, which are continuing to improve and impress to this day.