Villa Dora - Piedirosso - Mount Vesuvius, Campania, IT - 2020

This Campanian variety is found all around the Bay of Naples, sometimes blended with Aglianico, sometimes unblended, as here. (It makes up about 80% of Villa Dora’s Lacryma Christi.) It is named after the red stalks of the ripe bunches, which are said to resemble the red feet of pigeons. All of the vines at Villa Dora are ungrafted, due to the volcanic soil that comes from eruptions of Vesuvius; this is extremely rare in the world of a wine generally. (The few vineyards in France that remain ungrafted are seen as national treasures, as is Quinto do Noval’s ‘Nacional’ vineyard in Portugal.) The wine is made with a very short maceration, just a few days, followed by aging for about a year and a half in stainless steel. Fermentation is carried out using selected yeasts.

///

Volcanic soils make interesting wines, and many of Campania's famous terroirs are of volcanic origin. Mount Vesuvius is an active volcano just east of Naples, and the organically farmed vineyards of Villa Dora are on the lower southern slopes of the volcano, inside the national park that surrounds it. The soil, ground-up pumice really, looks like dark grey Grape-Nuts, and the wines are strikingly flavorful and distinctive. There is no known scientific reason why certain minerals in the soil would affect the flavors of the wines grown in that soil, but I have to think there's a connection.
Another benefit of this striking soil is that it is inhospitable to Phylloxera Vastatrix, the ominously named root-louse that wiped out viticulture in much of Europe in the decades on either side of 1900. The insect can’t infect the vines, which means the plants don’t have to be grafted to an American root-stock when they are planted (the great majority of the world’s vineyards have to be grafted over.) Many tasters feel that ungrafted vines make better wine. Try these and see for yourself.
Villa Dora is the passion of Vincenzo Ambrosio, and it is his enthusiasm for this estate and the striking wines grown here that has made the project possible. Now his equally enthusiastic nephew Vincenzo Orabona is our contact with the estate; bottling the component varieties of Vesuvio like Piedirosso and Caprettone separately was his idea, and a good one.