Taurasi

The ground falls into three broad sectors. In the west, around Venticano, Pietradefusi, Montemiletto and Torre le Nocelle, varicoloured clays and calcarenites dominate, with traces of the Campanian Ignimbrite, the ash of a vast ancient eruption. In the east, conglomerates with sand and sandy clay mark Luogosano and Paternopoli, and weakly cemented sandstones San Mango, Castelvetere, Montemarano and Castelfranci. In the north-east, around Bonito, Mirabella Eclano and Sant'Angelo all'Esca, sands and sandstones prevail.

Taurasi is Aglianico, with up to 15 per cent of other local red grapes. It ages at least three years from the first of December of the harvest year, one of them in wood, and a Riserva four, with eighteen months in wood. The town itself was destroyed by the Romans in 268 BC, and in the second century BC the Romans settled deported Ligurians on the Taurasine fields, where they took up the vines of the peoples they replaced. Taurasi became a DOC in 1970 and a DOCG in 1993.