The Ides Are Upon Us! Get Your History on with a Celebrated Roman Wine.
This week only, we’re offering a limited supply of the 2005 Fattoria Galardi Terra di Lavoro for $79.99 (reg $120+!)…here’s your chance to get your hands on it!
The Ides of March, which falls on March 15 in the modern calendar, is notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar. What many don’t know is that it also marked the Feast of Anna Perenna, a goddess of the year. The day was enthusiastically celebrated among the common people with picnics, drinking, and revelry.
So instead of worrying about the Ides of March as a time of bad luck, we say let’s think of it as a celebration of change! What better beverage for your Ides of March / Anna Perenna picnic than a much-lauded wine with roots that go back to Roman times?
Terra di Lavoro, first produced in 1994, has established itself as one of Italy’s cult wines. Proprietors Arturo and Dora Celentano have a huge passion for food and wine, and that exuberance comes through loud and clear in these fabulous wines. Terra di Lavoro is 80% Aglianico and 20% Piedirosso from vines planted by consulting oenologist Riccardo Cotarella beginning in 1991. The fruit is harvested according to ripeness rather than strictly by variety, which means that Aglianico and Piedirosso are sometimes picked and vinified together. After the alcoholic fermentation, the wines are racked into French oak where they remain on their lees for several months. The final blend is assembled and undergoes what is usually a very slow malo, in steel for 80-90% of the wine, prior to being moved back into oak. There is little question that malolactic fermentation in stainless steel contributes significant freshness and aging potential to this heroic southern Italian wine.
Robert Parker and his team of reviewers consistently rave about the Terra di Lavoro. Here is the Robert Parker review:
“It’s hard to know what to write next about this fabulous wine, which not only has revealed the phenomenal potential of the blend of 80% Aglianico (for power and depth) and 20% Piedirosso (for aromatic complexity) but also demonstrated why Falernum, the wine produced in this area under the Roman Empire, was considered the greatest of the ancient world, capable – according to Petronius – of lasting 100 years. I’ll make no predictions about the aging potential of the 2001 Terra di Lavoro, other than the fact that I will regrettably not be around for the centenary celebration, but I would be amazed if it did not last twenty five years. In the meantime, it gives back every nuance of aroma and flavor of the slopes on which it is grown, the blackberry/raspberry fruit, truffles, tar, underbrush, and warm volcanic soil in a packed but super-elegant format, rich, powerful, mouth-filling and palate-satisfying, concentrated, velvety, and flawless. To the owners, and to Riccardo Cotarella, the only possible words which can be expressed are those of simple gratitude for this unexpected miracle which appeared out of nowhere in 1994 and has not ceased to amaze ever since.”
