APIANUM RISERVA

Apianum Riserva is the Fiano di Avellino Riserva DOCG of Raffaele Noviello's Scarpa estate — named with the classical precision of one who knows his history: Apianum was the ancient Roman name for the Fiano grape, from the Latin for bees, reflecting the sweetness and aromatic intensity that drew insects to its fruit. It is a Riserva designation that carries the additional weight of the estate's commitment to native varieties exclusively and its integrated pest management approach that protects the groundwater and the land.

The production process follows the careful, unhurried approach that characterises all of the Scarpa estate's wines: destemming, gentle pressing, natural settling, and double inoculation of selected yeasts, with fermentation at controlled temperature and ageing in stainless steel tanks. The minimum of six months in bottle before release ensures that the wine's aromatic profile has had sufficient time to integrate and develop.

Fiano di Avellino is one of the white wines most capable of genuine development in bottle — a quality that the Riserva designation acknowledges and that the extended ageing protocol of this wine supports. The grape's characteristic aromatic signature — broom flowers, roasted hazelnuts, citrus, and the particular mineral freshness of the Irpinian hills — develops in complexity and depth over time in a manner that few other Italian whites can match.

Apianum Riserva is a wine that deserves and rewards patience both at the table and in the cellar. At the table it pairs naturally with the more complex preparations of the Campanian seafood tradition — shellfish, elaborate fish sauces, and preparations with aged fish — and equally well with white meats in complex preparations. In the cellar, it reveals, with the passage of years, the full depth of what the Fiano grape in Irpinia is capable of becoming.

Available through UniqueWines.