Calabria

Calabria has been making wine for 2,800 years and is currently one of the least-known serious wine regions in Italy. It sits on geology found nowhere else in the country, grows grapes almost no one outside it can name, and has never had a commercial moment. That combination makes it the most interesting place in Italy to look for wines nobody has priced yet.

The Landscape Forty-nine per cent hill, 42 per cent mountain, and only 9 per cent flat — the Plain of Sibari on the Ionian side, then Lamezia Terme and Rosarno facing the Tyrrhenian. The Pollino massif on the Basilicata border carries the highest peaks, Serra Dolcedorme and Monte Pollino, both over 2,200 metres; it is the southern end of the Apennine chain, built of limestone from several eras and hollowed by karst caves. The Monti di Orsomarso, in the same national park, are among the wettest places in Italy. The climate is Mediterranean throughout, cooler and drier on the Ionian coast, milder on the Tyrrhenian, and properly cold with snow in the mountains.

A Piece of Somewhere Else Almost the whole region belongs to the Calabro-Peloritanian Arc, and it is geologically peculiar. This is a fragment of the Alpine chain that broke away from the Sardo-Corso block in the Miocene, rotated anticlockwise and migrated south-east into its present position, wedging itself beneath the Pollino Apennines and reaching across to north-eastern Sicily — effectively stitching the Apennines to the Sicilian and African Maghreb. So from Pollino southwards the rock is far older than the Apennines it appears to continue: Palaeozoic metamorphic and crystalline units rather than limestone. That rotation also threw up La Sila at the centre of the peninsula, the largest plateau in Europe, topping 1,928 metres at Monte Botte Donato, with schist and gneiss, quartz on its western slope, crystalline limestone to the north, Pliocene clays and marls east and Miocene sandstone south.

Magna Graecia Greek colonists arriving around the eighth century BC transformed what had been rudimentary proto-viticulture. Calabria was among the most important territories of Magna Graecia, and the cities founded then — Rhegion, Kroton, Locri Epizephyrii, Sybaris, with sub-colonies such as Kaulon and Hipponion — left temples and ruins still standing. Kroton, in the Cirò zone, produced generations of Olympic victors, and the association of its wine with those athletes is the oldest piece of wine marketing in Italy still in use.

The Grapes Gaglioppo is the principal red and the backbone of Cirò — pale, high in acid and tannin, more Nebbiolo-shaped than its latitude suggests. Magliocco is arguably the better grape and has been comprehensively confused by its own synonyms: most of the alternative names attached to it, including Guarnaccia Nera and Greco Nero, are erroneous. Greco Nero itself is a trap, since the vine grown under that name near Lamezia Terme does appear to be Magliocco while those at Sibari and Verbicaro are different grapes again. Among the whites, Greco Bianco is several distinct Calabrian vines sharing one name, and Mantonico, Guardavalle and Pecorello are all worth attention.

The Critical Take Cirò is the region’s flagship and still sells for less than it should. The trap worth knowing before buying is the name Greco: the celebrated air-dried sweet wine of the Ionian coast is Greco di Bianco, made at the town of Bianco, while the near-identically named Greco Bianco Cirò is a dry white and an entirely different proposition. Calabria’s real advantage is altitude — the mountains let growers plant high enough to keep acidity in a climate that would otherwise cook the fruit — and its real problem is depopulation. A handful of producers are making genuinely fine wine here and most of the region is still selling grapes.

At the Table Nduja, the spreadable chilli sausage of Spilinga; swordfish from the strait; the sweet red onions of Tropea; pecorino crotonese; and liquorice from the Ionian coast, which is among the best in the world. Gaglioppo’s acidity handles the chilli better than a heavier red would.

Where to Start A Cirò Rosso Classico Superiore from a grower rather than a co-operative. Then anything made from Magliocco, and a Greco di Bianco if one can be found.