The wines of Taurasi, made in an inland corner of Campania, about an hour’s drive east of Naples, have had their moments of fame over the years. Taurasi has even been nicknamed Barolo of the South—a high bar of quality and fame to reach! Taurasi DOCG wines must include at least 85% Aglianico, but most exceed the minimum to be monovarietal bottlings. Aglianico is a highly tannic and highly productive variety with an extremely long maturation cycle, with picking usually taking place in late October or early November. The resulting wines need a very long time to soften, likely the reason that three years of aging are required, with at least one in oak, before they go to market.
These qualities are essentially a checklist of what is not in vogue in a wine these days. Unlike Barolo, which now produces a reasonable number of wines that can be drunk young (or at least without a decade of aging), Taurasi yields wines often cited as undrinkable in their youth. This is, of course, a generalization, but there are plenty of bottles that live up to this description.
So how does a region like Taurasi fit into the current wine landscape? More importantly, how do the wineries that established the historic fame of this region survive while continuing to produce said wines, or even those of a lighter style?
Like winemakers anywhere in Italy, Taurasi’s producers have a long history of viticulture in the area, with claims that it dates to 800 BCE. Despite this, the region is usually regarded as modern, given that it gained attention in 1968 via the wines of Antonio Mastroberardino. The DOC was established in 1970, and it was raised to DOCG in 1993, becoming the first DOCG in southern Italy. What gave the region significantly more reach was the establishment of the Capaldo family’s Feudi di San Gregorio, in 1986, which became globally recognized and is the largest producer in the region.
With vineyards at 400 to 700 meters (1,300 to 2,300 feet) in elevation and plenty of water available (900 to 1,100 millimeters, or 35.4 to 43.3 inches, annually in Campania), producers in Taurasi are not suffering from the effects of climate change like most in the Mediterranean basin. Soils include striations of calcareous clay, limestone, and volcanic elements, but Taurasi is not a volcanic region, even though it is only 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from Mount Vesuvius. Because of the various changes in altitude as well as the high rainfall, it is a geologically complex region, unlike purely volcanic areas such as Santorini or Lanzarote. The resulting mix of soils contributes to balanced blends when there are hotter or cooler years.
Despite these terroir advantages, producers are clearly facing challenges. According to the most recent figures available (from 2020), the winemakers of Taurasi are bottling only about 6,304 hectoliters of wine, or about 840,000 bottles. This isn’t a terribly large amount of wine to sell, but they’re vinifying nearly three times this amount, at 17,488 hectoliters. There is far more wine that could be produced that they’re holding back. This difference has been vast in some vintages; in 2019, for example, they bottled less than 27% of their total production.
How can Taurasi’s winemakers balance out these production and bottling totals and stay in business? A key tool to survival is that most wineries in the region are not relying solely on Taurasi, similar to producers in the Rhône Valley. Diversification keeps the boat afloat.
During my recent visit, I found that nearly every winery had a broad palette of offerings. The family-run Cortecorbo, for example, produces about 20,000 bottles a year as Campania rosato, Fiano di Avellino, Coda di Volpe, Aglianico, Taurasi, and Campi Taurasini. The winery also has an interactive enotourism program, with mother and winemaker Antonia hosting and son Antonio entertaining. This is both a revenue stream and another avenue to move wines.
On the opposite end of production, Tenuta Cavalier Pepe makes upward of half a million bottles annually. But just like Cortecorbo, the estate produces a very wide array of wines, including reds (with a strong emphasis on Taurasi), whites, a rosé, and several sparkling wines. There is even a red called Rossochiaro, a blend of Aglianico, Merlot, and Sangiovese, meant to be served chilled, at 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), and released under the more lenient Irpinia IGT.
The rigidity of the Taurasi DOCG rules is a double-edged sword. While the rules historically helped define the region, they can be onerous when producers need to flex for a changing market. Thankfully, winemakers can declassify to other, lower appellations, as Tenuta Cavalier Pepe has done. This again recalls the Rhône, where, for example, the stalwart M. Chapoutier has an 11.5% Rouge Clair that’s bottled as Vin de France.
Milena Pepe, the director and head winemaker of Tenuta Cavalier Pepe, had a different approach when she arrived in 2005, but, she says, “There’s been a revolution over the last 20 years—definitely for me since 2008, as we’re using less extraction as well as harvesting at the right moment and dropping the new oak.”
While a winery like Cortecorbo has a steady stream of small groups, Pepe wants to grow enotourism much more. She is aware of the challenges in developing what is a very beneficial component to any wine region. “There aren’t a lot of people, and [there’s] not a lot of tourism,” she says. “So there isn’t much promotion of it. The coast is really where all the money is, so as they earn more, they can continue to invest and grow.”
Some producers, however, are not responding to wine-drinking or tourism trends. Instead, they are focused on what they consider the purest expression of Taurasi and the Aglianico grape, an approach exemplified by Gian Luca Mazzella. The 2021, 2020, and 2019 vintages of his two wines, tasted at the end of 2025, were exceptionally tannic and frontal. This is despite not pressing the grapes and using very large foudres for aging.
Mazzella is clearly seeking icon status with these wines. He sources from only five hectares (12.4 acres) of vines, with an absurdly low yield of 10 hectoliters per hectare. Then, he macerates the grapes for three months, followed by three to four years of aging in 20- and 45-hectoliter barrels. The wine prices are not yet set but are projected to be several hundred euros per bottle, in the upper echelons of pricing for wines from southern Italy.
It’s a risky approach, but Mazzella has generated buzz, which is clearly helped by his previous work as a journalist. All the thought that’s shaped the process and Mazzella’s decades as a consulting winemaker throughout Europe are reflected in the wines. Whether there will be mass appeal for them remains to be seen, as they will need many more years in the bottle to fully reach the potential that Mazzella envisions.
There are competing visions of how Taurasi might succeed in the modern age of winemaking and wine selling. Whether making approachable wines for a local market, especially Naples, with a wide variety of options for every taste, or creating a singular icon style of wine, winemakers are trying everything as they work through challenging times. In today’s uncertain and shifting wine industry, it’s not clear which strategies will bring success, but the winemakers of Taurasi are not standing still as they seek a place for their wines in the global wine market.
Consorzio Tutela dei Vini d’Irpinia (website). Accessed February 3, 2026. https://consorziovinidirpinia.it/vini/taurasi-docg-vino/.
Vino Taurasi (website). Accessed February 3, 2026. https://www.vinotaurasi.it/.