A few convergences that look as if they ought to be significant are occurring here. This, my first post about one of the special 12 wines I’ve chosen from my hoard for this year’s consumption, focuses on a new wine from an ancient grape variety, Pallagrello nero, that had all but disappeared. It was produced by a new winery that has in fact just disappeared. Not quite a year ago, Giovanni Ascione – Nanni Copé is his alter ego — announced that he would no longer produce wine. So this bottle that I selected to start off my chosen 12 for 2021 is indeed a rarity, and will never be joined by any new vintages.
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The full name of the wine in question, Nanni Copé 2011 Sabbie di Sopra il Bosco, Terre del Volturno IGT, probably packs too much information in too concentrated a form for most non-Italian (and no doubt many Italian) consumers to grasp, so let me open it up.
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First, what is it?
This wine is composed of approximately 90 percent Pallagrello nero and 10 percent Aglianico and Casavecchia grapes. Both, like the better known Aglianico, are very old varieties indigenous to Campania and nowhere else, and both varieties had almost died out until rescued and re-propagated in quite recent years. The Pallagrello comes from vines that originated as cuttings from the few surviving very old – perhaps 150-year-old – plants that are today the parents of all the Pallagrello nero grown in Campania.
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(FYI: There is also a Pallagrello bianco, but – despite the names – they are totally unrelated varieties. There is not a lot of information around about Pallagrello, red or white. Short entries in Jancis Robinson’s Wine Grapes are the sum of what’s known about them. For some reason, Ian d’Agata’s supposedly comprehensive Native Wine Grapes of Italy doesn’t even mention Pallagrello.)
The Casavecchia variety in this wine comes from a tiny, less-than-half-hectare vineyard of hundred-year-old, pre-phylloxera vines. Campania preserves a surprising number of pre-phylloxera vines, of many different varieties, not all of them identified or identifiable.
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Second, where does it come from?
This IGT wine is from the Terre del Volturno, which is the denomination that covers approximately the southern half of the province of Caserta, which, in its turn, forms the northernmost province of Campania.
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The name Sabbie di Sopra il Bosco is that of a particular vineyard, The Sandy Fields Above the Woods. I visited it a few years ago, and I can tell you that it’s a small triangle of gently sloping land formed by a bend of the Volturno River, very rural and picturesque, and a perfect site for a vineyard. (Unfortunately, I have no photos. I don’t do cameras anymore: The technology passed me by when they stopped using film.)
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Third, how did it taste?
This 2011 bottle was a Tre Bicchieri winner, one of a steady series of such that began with the second vintage (2009) from the tiny Nanni Copé winery and ran until its most recent releases. My bottle was a marvel: I had planned to uncork it several hours before dinner, to give it time to breathe and open, but when I pulled the cork, its aroma was already so rich and heady that I immediately closed it up again so as not to lose any of that loveliness.
When I finally poured it, a huge burst of dried fig and dried peach scents, followed by scents of sottobosco and funghi porcini, preceded the palate of, initially, peaches, which were quickly enveloped by dark berries and those basso profundo undergrowth flavors. The wine was very big in the mouth, and smooth, with particularly elegant tannins (Giovanni Ascione was always enthusiastic about the smoothness and nobility of Pallagrello’s tannins). All this concluded with a long, dried fig finish.
All in all, this was a ravishing wine, a joy to drink, and all the more so for the way it partnered with a sapid and richly savory stuffed breast of veal Diane had made to accompany it. The complex flavors of the prosciutto-and porcini-stuffed veal, with its white wine and broth sauce, evoked a corresponding complexity in the wine, whose smooth tannins welcomed the unctuousness of the veal breast. It was hard to say whether the food was showcasing the wine or vice versa.
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Fourth, who is the maker?
Giovanni Ascione is – was – among a handful of producers in Caserta cultivating Pallagrello. They are led by Peppe Mancini and Manuela Piancastelli, who were the original rescuers of Pallagrello – both the red variety and the white – and Casavecchia. Their estate, Terre del Principe, is today the largest producer of Pallagrello wines. Their ranks were joined in recent years by several others, including Castello Ducale and Alois. Giovanni Ascione began his Nanni Copé winery in 2007 and ceased production just about a year ago, in 2019, after a critically acclaimed and all-too-short run.
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I think I’ve tasted every vintage of Sabbie di Sopra il Bosco except the most recent, and they have all been splendid. I’ve admired them from my very first encounter with them. For the record, here is my account of that, at a ten-year-ago Campania Stories tasting:
Giovanni Ascione followed with Sabbie di Sopra il Bosco, his traditional field blend of roughly 90% Pallagrello nero, almost 10% Aglianico, and a sprinkling of Casavecchia. He showed 2008, 2009, and 2010 – his first three vintages, of which the ’09 and the ’10 both got Tre Bicchieri from Gambero Rosso and Cinque Grappoli from the Italian Sommeliers Association. This Pallagrello nero is the only wine he makes, from slightly more than three hand-tended (mostly by him) hectares. He has every single vine entered on an Excel spreadsheet, and he follows each one as if it were his only child. His production is tiny – 620 cases – and exquisite.
Here are my notes on the 2008: “Nose: chocolate, tobacco, black cherry jam. Dry chocolate/cherry on the palate; round, with soft tannins and bright acidity. A meaty finish, with leather undertones. Overall, intense and fine, with seemingly a long life in front of it. The aroma opens over time to leather and dried beef. A chewable wine, textured and rich.” I’ll spare you the rest of my notes on the ’09 and ’10: They’re in the same vein. My final comment says it all: “These are amazingly complex wines – intense, complicated, and quite wonderful.”
Just like Peppe Mancini, Giovanni Ascione is passionate about Pallagrello nero, believing wholeheartedly in its capacity to make great wine, a task he devoted himself to for a dozen years. As noted, his production was always small: My 2011 was one of only 6100 bottles and 120 magnums he made that year. The French wouldn’t have hesitated to label him a garagiste, and he brought the obsessiveness of that breed to bear on his vines and wines.
Given his intensity, I find it hard to fathom why he has stopped making wine. All he has said is that, in effect, he has accomplished what he wanted to and now he’s moving on. Possibly, of course, that is all that there is to it, but I can’t help but hear his impish sense of humor and self-irony, and I can’t help but wonder what other reasons remain unstated. Well, let them stay that way: Everyone, even a winemaker, is entitled to his privacy. I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to acquire a few more bottles of his marvelous elixir before the fountain dried up.
Every ending is the beginning of something else. I’m just wondering what Nanni Copé may be up to next.
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