Aversa DOC

The strangest vineyard in Italy. On the flat land north of Naples, Asprinio is trained up living poplars to a height of fifteen metres and picked from ladders, in a system called the alberata aversana that has no equivalent anywhere else in Europe.

The Terroir The registered file is precise about a landscape that offers very little relief. The delimited zone is a geologically homogeneous plain set to the north of the Campi Flegrei, in what were once called the Regi Lagni, bounded by Orta di Atella to the east, Casal di Principe to the north, Villa Literno to the west and Qualiano to the south. It is entirely flat, with altitude running from 10 metres at Villa Literno to 101 metres at Qualiano; prevailing exposure is south; the climate is Mediterranean with moderate swings, hot summers and temperate winters.

The Alberata The vines climb poplars planted in rows, forming green walls that divide the fields — the same principle as the Roman arbustum, and often attributed locally to the Etruscans who drained and settled this plain. A single tree can carry a vine yielding enough for several hundred bottles. Harvest is done from a narrow ladder called a scala, up to twelve metres long, carried between trees on the shoulder. It is dangerous, slow, unmechanisable work, and it survives on a few dozen hectares.

Grape Varieties Asprinio Bianco, alone. The name is the wine: aspro, sharp. It ripens late even here, holds ferocious acidity, and gives a pale, low-alcohol white of about 10 or 11 degrees. The file registers a still wine, a spumante and a quality sparkling wine, describing a fine persistent mousse, straw-yellow colour and a dry, fresh, characteristic palate.

The Critical Take Asprinio is not a great wine and it is a genuinely important one. Judged as a still white it is thin and austere; judged as a sparkling base it is superb, because acidity like that is exactly what the method needs, and the metodo classico bottlings from the better growers are seriously good and cost very little. The zone’s problem is not quality but land: this is the hinterland of Naples, some of the most built-over and contested countryside in Italy, and the poplars come down faster than they go up.

The Tufo Cellars Under the towns, the wine was aged in cellars cut into the soft yellow tuff — sometimes tens of metres deep, reached by spiral stairs, holding a constant cool temperature in a place with no hills to dig into. Many still exist beneath Aversa and its neighbours, and a few are still in use.

At the Table Campanian fried food and seafood: frittura, anchovies, mozzarella di bufala, spaghetti alle vongole, and pizza. Serve at 8–10°C.

Benchmark Producers I Borboni, the reference for the alberata, and Grotta del Sole.