Giuseppe Calabrese Terre di Cosenza Pollino

About Giuseppe Calabrese Terre di Cosenza Pollino

Giuseppe Calabrese Terre di Cosenza Pollino is intriguing and moody, with smoky, savory, fresh black fruit, and grainy tannins.

About Giuseppe Calabrese

Giuseppe Calabrese tends four hectares of mostly bush-trained old vines, in the Pollino Mountains of northern Calabria, in the ancient town of Saracena. He works without peer in this remote area; to say he’s plowing the rough road is an understatement. The winter’s here are bracing, summers are fresh, thanks to the nearby mountains and high altitude (400 meters). The soil is a mix of Neogene marine deposits and limestone, as seen by the many ancient limestone caves you find in the area.  Giuseppe’s wines are an echo of the local wildness, and the ancient Saracen civilization, which still imbues the area. The great Calabrian historian, Giovanni Fiore da Cropani described Saracena as an “Ancient land…built by the Oenotrians..500 years before the Trojan War.” The Oenotrians were no ordinary ancient people, these people from Greek Arcadia, their name itself means ‘people from the land of the vines.”

About Magliocco Dolce

The red grape variety Magliocco Dolce [mah-l’yee-OHK-koh DAWL-che]* is intriguing and moody: smoky, savory, fresh black fruit, and grainy tannins. The limestone and 40+-year-old bush vines make a difference. It is not sweet or dolce, as the name could mislead.  It will be interesting to see how it ages, but it seems to have all the components (tannins, acidity, extract) to do so. If it ages, to give a Calabrian reference, anything like Ippolito’s ‘Riserva del Falco’ we’re all in for a treasure.  Wood-fired dishes, such as roasted lamb or eggplant pair well, even with a bit of Calabrian hot pepper. Though complex and smoky, it’s not a big wine, so don’t be afraid to put this with many of the fresh-made pasta dishes made in these mountains: macaroni al ragu with shaved goat cheese, for example.