2016 Elena Fucci Titolo Aglianico Del Vulture DOC 750 ml

Consensus is elusive in the wine world. So when we can tout what is without question the finest bottling of its kind, that’s what we do. No wine deserves it more than the 2016 Elena Fucci Titolo Aglianico del Vulture. Winner of Gambero Rosso’s coveted Tre Bicchieri award every year since 2005—an astounding 13 times in total—this wine is, year in and year out, presented as the best of its region. But Titolo goes well beyond that: It’s without a doubt one of the great wines of the world. 

Titolo’s accolades are too many to list. Vinous recently tasted through a complete retrospective of Titolo, and said “wine lovers owe it to themselves to hunt down,” this bottling. Simply put, no other wine captures the power, beauty, and detail of the ancient Aglianico grape better. 

Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, in their 94-point review, said the 2016 Titolo is “stitched together with enormous precision,” “offers balanced intensity and a beautiful level of fruit purity,” and “should continue its steady evolution over the next 20 years or more.” The 2016 vintage displays dark plum, black licorice, cracked pepper, black cherry, and wild game, as well as volcanic origins that shine amongst its Nebbiolo-like tannic profile.

This gem from Basilicata is the ultimate of southern Italian red wine, and a bottle that belongs in your cellar, next to your finest—and yes, we mean your very finest—reds. Watching it evolve over the next two decades is going to provide the kind of pleasure that exists only at the apex of wine. 

Its name refers to the lava channel that ran down Mount Vulture, an ancient volcano, where Elena Fucci’s vineyard is situated above 2,100 feet in elevation. On this very special site, which has seen vine cultivation for at least two millennia, vines drive deep into the volcanic ash and rock, which imparts a distinctive minerality to the wine. The cooling breezes at this altitude facilitate slow, perfect ripening, and the Aglianico is often hand-harvested as late as the last week in October. 

Fucci’s 50-year-plus-old vines sit on 15 acres of what Vinous calls “a true Grand Cru (if such a classification existed in Italy!) uniquely blessed with a fresh microclimate.” The breeze over the top of the hill is a near-constant, providing ideal cooling, and the pockets of clay and loam sandwiched between the lava rock mean that the vines get the perfect amount of hydration and stress to produce healthy and extremely concentrated grapes. 

The result of this special place, and of Elena Fucci’s uncompromising focus, is Titolo. It’s her one wine, her grand vin, and as Vinous says, “it ranks with the best that Italy has to offer.” 

Good luck finding a critic or wine lover to disagree, and good luck finding an opportunity to score this collector’s item better than right here, and right now.