Luigi Moio makes this in the hills east of Avellino, on a small estate in Campania where Fiano has been grown since Roman times. Exultet is the estate's top Fiano, from a single vineyard, and it sees a little oak and time on the lees before release. It is a serious white, not a light one.
- Fiano, the grape of Avellino.
- Fiano di Avellino DOCG, Campania.
- 2019, a warm vintage in the south.
- 13.5% ABV, dry, medium-bodied.
- High acidity, low tannin.
How it is made
Fiano di Avellino is a DOCG, which means the wine must come from Fiano grown inside a defined set of hills around the town of Avellino, and nowhere else. The grape is thick-skinned and late-ripening, and it holds its acid well even in a warm year. Exultet is the estate's flagship white, fermented and aged partly in wood with lees contact, which is where the texture and the almond note come from.
How it tastes
White peach and citrus peel, then almond and wet stone. The acidity is high and the body medium, so it reads taut rather than fat. The finish is saline and long. A wine that starts quiet and keeps going.
Where it comes from
The hills around Avellino sit inland from Naples, at altitude, with volcanic and clay soils and a wide swing between day and night. Fiano was nearly abandoned in the twentieth century before a handful of producers in Irpinia brought it back, and it is now the south's most serious white grape.
Good to know
Fiano was known to the Romans as apianum, the grape the bees loved, because the ripe skins are sweet enough to draw them. The name stuck to the family of wines.
