Terre dell’Alta Val d’Agri DOC

A three-commune denomination high in the Basilicata Apennines — Viggiano, Grumento Nova and Moliterno, in the province of Potenza — built around Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon rather than anything native. It is one of the more improbable DOCs in southern Italy and among the least seen.

The Terroir The registered file places the zone in the Alta Val d’Agri, an intra-Apennine valley of Pleistocene age and fluvio-lacustrine origin, formed of lake deposits of the same period and covered by recent alluvium that has produced soils of varying texture and character. Vineyards, it says, sit predominantly on the hill slopes descending towards the plain, where they occupy the largest surfaces and reach their greatest specialisation. What the file leaves implicit is altitude: this is a valley floor at roughly 600 metres ringed by mountains, and the growing season is short, cool and sharply swung between day and night.

Grape Varieties Merlot leads, with Cabernet Sauvignon as the principal partner and a permitted supporting cast that includes Aglianico. The file describes a wine that is ruby tending to garnet, pleasantly fruity, harmonious and round, at a minimum 12 per cent alcohol. A riserva is also made.

The Critical Take Bordeaux varieties in the Lucanian mountains sound like a marketing decision from the 1990s, and in part they were — the DOC dates from 2003. But the altitude genuinely suits them: Merlot at 600 metres in an enclosed valley ripens slowly and keeps its acidity, and the wines are fresher and more savoury than Merlot from anywhere else this far south. The problem is scale. Production is minute, the name is unknown even within Basilicata, and Aglianico del Vulture absorbs whatever attention the region receives.

The Valley The Val d’Agri is worth knowing about for reasons beyond wine. Grumento Nova stands beside the ruins of Roman Grumentum, a substantial town with an amphitheatre still standing. Moliterno gives its name to Canestrato di Moliterno, one of the great aged sheep’s cheeses of the south. And the valley holds the largest onshore oil field in western Europe, extracted at Viggiano since the 1990s — an uncomfortable neighbour for an agricultural denomination, and a live local argument.

At the Table Lucanian mountain cooking: lamb and kid, lucanica sausage, peperoni cruschi, and above all the Canestrato di Moliterno made in these same communes. Serve at 16–17°C.

Benchmark Producers There is no established benchmark. The denomination has only a handful of bottlers, none with a national profile, and the wine is rarely seen outside the valley — this is one to try where it is made rather than to seek out by name.