Galluccio DOC

The northern slopes of an extinct volcano in the far north of Campania, on the Lazio border. Galluccio is a small denomination with a very good file — it quotes a fifteenth-century humanist and a twentieth-century critic in the same paragraph.

The Terroir The registered file calls the zone among the richest for history and natural beauty, and suited since classical times to the production of wine. The orography is represented by the slopes of the extinct volcano of Roccamonfina to the south, with the mountain group of Monte Camino and la Difesa, and a ridge taking in Monte Cesima and Monte Cavallo. Roccamonfina is a large collapsed caldera whose ash covers the whole district; the vineyards sit on it between 200 and 600 metres.

Two Witnesses The file names them both. Giannantonio Campano, the eminent humanist born in 1429 at Cavelle, described the grape here as “healthy, vigorous, not inferior to Hymettian honey” — Hymettus being the mountain above Athens whose honey was the standard of excellence in the classical world. And more recently, the file records that the wine known as rosso di Conca was cited from the sixties onward by Luigi Veronelli. Veronelli was the most influential Italian wine writer of the twentieth century, and a file that cites him is telling you where its ambition comes from.

Grape Varieties Aglianico makes the red, at a minimum of 70 per cent, with Piedirosso permitted; Falanghina makes the white. It is the standard northern Campanian pairing, on volcanic soil at altitude.

The Critical Take Aglianico on Roccamonfina ash is a genuinely good proposition — firmer and more mineral than the Taurasi style, with the volcanic smokiness that this corner of Campania does better than anywhere. The denomination is tiny, sits in the shadow of Falerno del Massico a few kilometres south, and has perhaps a handful of bottlers. It is one of the more underpriced serious reds in the region.

The Volcano Roccamonfina last erupted around fifty thousand years ago and is now a regional park of chestnut forest. Its ash is why this whole stretch of northern Campania — Galluccio, Falerno, Roccamonfina itself — grows better wine than the limestone country either side of it.

The Northern Corner This is Campania at its least Campanian. Galluccio sits against the Lazio border, closer to Cassino than to Naples, in country the guidebooks send nobody to. The three volcanic denominations here — Galluccio, Falerno del Massico and Roccamonfina’s wider slopes — share one ash sheet and almost no recognition, and they are collectively the best argument that Campania’s north is worth as much attention as its south.

At the Table Northern Campanian cooking: lamb, salsiccia, buffalo mozzarella with the Falanghina, chestnuts, and aged caciocavallo. Red at 16–18°C, white at 10–12°C.

Benchmark Producers Telaro, the reference for the zone, and Porto di Mola.