The evidence and the judgment

Can we recognize and appreciate the quality in a bottle without it fully satisfying our personal tastes? So, is it possible to separate - even in the world of wine - objective quality from subjective pleasure?

My personal answer to this topic has always been positive, but I had further - and in some ways definitive - confirmation after the tasting of the Fiano di Avellino 2014 produced by Pietracupa winery.

A wine - according to all experts - among the best into the denomination, produced in one of the most suitable areas of Irpinia for white grapes (Montefredane) by a decidedly good and enlightened winemaker, Sabino Loffredo.

The tasting showed me a nectar in which the quality – although limited by a vintage that will certainly not be remembered among the best in recent years - can be glimpsed in the finesse of the scents showed on the nose that above all it reveals itself and makes it evident in the mouth, with richness of flavour and on "out of ordinary" persistence.

But that, however, because of its extreme verticality, its - in some ways obsessive - search for freshness and sapidity (which in the first years is often split from the rest of the body), didn’t give me that impression of full balance and pleasantness that I seek in a wine tasting.

So, a wine rich of contrasts like the land which it comes from, that has paradoxically in its inability to mediation, in its obstinacy of wanting to show for what it is, - without unnecessary frills - at the same time its uniqueness and limit.

Fiano di Avellino Pietracupa 2014

Personal rating: 86/100

Grapes: 100% Fiano

Aging: Steel

Price range: 15-20 €

TASTING NOTES

👀 Straw yellow to golden

👃Clean, with good finesse but even if a little closed, as well as not particularly complex. Yellow flowers, chalky/mineral notes, fresh hazelnut

👄Dry, medium to full body, with acidity and sapidity still strong and not perfectly balanced by softness and alcohol. Good drinkability. Excellent persistence, typical Fiano’s finish with savory and toasted hazelnut notes, with also a lightly surplus of alcoholic sensation