IL TEMPO

Il Tempo — Time — is the first wine that Campania Felix ever produced, and it remains the wine that most clearly states the estate's purpose and philosophy. It is a Pallagrello Nero — the grape that King Ferdinando IV of Bourbon loved so deeply that he prohibited public access to its vineyards in Piedimonte Matese and served it alongside French wines at his royal banquets. To produce a Pallagrello Nero of quality is to participate in a tradition of genuine historical distinction.

The estate's biodynamic philosophy finds its most complete expression in Il Tempo: the wine is aged for nine months in terracotta amphorae and stainless-steel tanks — a choice that honours the oldest vessel tradition in Mediterranean winemaking while maintaining the freshness and purity that the Pallagrello Nero's fruit and structure demand. No cold stabilisation. Unfiltered. Twelve months in bottle. The wine that arrives in the glass is as close to the natural expression of the grape and the terroir as considered winemaking can achieve.

The Matese territory — with its lavic soil, rich in clay elements, windy, immersed in flowers and fruits — produces Pallagrello Nero of a particular wild, lush, and welcoming character. On the nose, Il Tempo offers ruby red colour with aromas of flowers and red fruit, spicy and balsamic notes that carry the aromatic richness of the Matese landscape. On the palate, the freshness is genuine and sustaining, and the velvety tannin of the Pallagrello Nero — one of the variety's most distinctive qualities — makes each sip simultaneously substantial and inviting.

Il Tempo expresses all the wild, lush, and welcoming essence of the Matese terroir: rich in clay and lavic elements, windy, fully immersed in flowers and fruits. It is the estate's founding wine, and in its simplicity and directness it remains one of its most convincing arguments for the importance of what the Campania Felix team is doing in this singular piece of volcanic Campania.

Available through UniqueWines. Iconic labels.