ESPERANTO

Esperanto is the champion of purity in the Nesci portfolio — 100% Nero di Calabria, the indigenous red grape of the Calabrian hills that is closely related to the Nerello Mascalese of Sicily, and that carries a character both ancestral and unmistakably Mediterranean. The name is significant: Esperanto, the constructed universal language of peace and mutual understanding, applied to a wine that speaks of a grape variety so specific to its territory that it cannot truly be translated into any other context.

The Nero di Calabria vine has been cultivated in the Nesci estate's biodynamic ecosystem for generations — growing on the sea-facing hills of Palizzi in the constant presence of the Ionian breeze, immersed in the bergamot plantation and olive grove that give all the estate's wines their distinctive aromatic background. It is a grape of consistent, particularly complex structure — not the immediately accessible fruitiness of Merlot, but the deeper, more layered expression of a variety that has evolved over centuries to express one specific piece of Calabrian earth.

In the glass, Esperanto presents with an intense ruby red colour that signals the concentration and structure to come. The olfactory register covers red fruits and flowers in combination — the aromatic freshness of the Calabrian hills translated into wine form. What distinguishes this wine from a merely pleasant red, however, is the palate: warm and well-balanced, the structure has been composed with the specific aim of giving the drinker a background perception of bergamot — that most Calabrian of flavours, so specific to this corner of southern Italy that it functions almost as a geographical fingerprint in the glass.

Esperanto is a wine that deserves and rewards attention. It is not the most immediately showy wine in the Nesci range, but it is arguably the most interesting — the wine that makes the most convincing case for Nero di Calabria as a variety worthy of international recognition, and for the Nesci estate as the producer best positioned to make that case.

Available through UniqueWines. Ideal alongside the fuller preparations of southern Italian cuisine — braised meats, robust pasta, aged cheeses — and with the patience to develop further in bottle.