Cilento DOC

While Irpinia and Vesuvius get the glory, the Cilento (southern Campania) is a sleeping giant. This vast national park is wilder and more untouched than the north. The DOC covers both Fiano and Aglianico, but here they behave differently than in Avellino.

The Terroir The soils here are “Flysch”—a sedimentary mix of clay and limestone—rather than purely volcanic. However, the proximity to the Tyrrhenian Sea is the defining factor. The Aglianico here is less brooding and more fruit-forward than Taurasi, often with a distinctive saline note. The Fiano (sometimes called Santa Sofia locally) is waxy and rich.

The Critical Take Don’t expect the structural rigor of Taurasi; expect the warmth of the Mediterranean.

Where the Mediterranean Diet Was Defined The Cilento has a claim on food history no other Italian wine zone can make. The American physiologist Ancel Keys settled at Pioppi on this coast and spent decades running the work that became the Seven Countries Study, and it was the eating of these villages — olive oil, bread, legumes, vegetables, very little meat, wine with meals — that he described and named. When UNESCO inscribed the Mediterranean Diet as intangible cultural heritage, Pollica in the Cilento was named among the emblematic communities. The wine is part of that pattern rather than an ornament on top of it.

Greek Before Roman The zone holds two of the most important Greek sites in Italy. Paestum’s three Doric temples are the best preserved anywhere, Greece included, and Velia further south was the home of Parmenides and Zeno and gave its name to the Eleatic school. Vines were worked on this coast while both cities were functioning ports.

Flysch and Sea The flysch the file names — alternating clay, marl and sandstone laid down in a deep basin and later folded — drains sharply and holds little, and the mountains of the national park come almost to the water. That combination puts altitude and maritime influence in the same vineyard, which is why the Aglianico here ripens without the brooding density it reaches inland, and why the Fiano keeps its salinity.

At the Table Cilentano cooking is austere and very good: alici di menaica, the anchovies still taken in hand-hauled nets at Marina di Pisciotta, goat cacioricotta, fusilli cilentani with a light ragù, and the white figs of the Cilento to finish. Fiano at 10–12°C, Aglianico at 16–17°C.

Benchmark Producers Luigi Maffini (a pioneer of the region), San Salvatore, De Conciliis.