Some Aglianico tastes like it was made to win medals. The wines of Il Cancelliere taste like they were made to be drunk at a long family table in the mountains, which is more or less how they came to be.
Backstory
Il Cancelliere is a Romano family estate in Montemarano, in the province of Avellino. The name comes from the nickname of Soccorso Romano's grandfather, affectionately called il cancelliere, the chancellor, because he was known for dispensing legal advice to local farmers. For generations the family sold their grapes; in 2005 Soccorso decided their fruit deserved a label of its own and relaunched the estate in the Lampenne area. He works today with his wife Pasqualina and his son Enrico, who brings agronomic training, in collaboration with winemaker Antonio di Gruttola.
The Region
Montemarano sits in the heart of Irpinia, one of the highest and coolest corners of the Taurasi DOCG. The altitude and long growing season here give Aglianico its formidable structure and the slow ripening that makes the wines so long-lived. A nineteenth-century family cottage, with a small restored cellar beneath it, is the heart of the operation.
Vineyards and Farming
The estate grows only Aglianico, farmed organically and worked by hand, rooted in the peasant traditions Soccorso learned from his father. Total production sits at around 20,000 bottles a year.
Winemaking
The cellar work is deliberately old-fashioned. Aging happens in old Slavonian oak, used so it adds no overt wood flavor, only slow integration. The wines see no filtration, no clarification, no stabilization and no added sulfites, then long bottle aging before release.
The Wines
O' Pezzaro, an Irpinia Aglianico, spends about six months in steel and twelve in old wood before a further stretch in bottle. Nero Ne, the Taurasi, is the flagship: roughly twenty-four months in Slavonian oak followed by some three years in bottle, a powerful, savory, ageworthy red built for patience.
