Great Southern

The wine for a hotter future might come from an ancient grape grown in Italy’s south.

- Max Allen

It was almost 20 years ago now, but I can still clearly remember the first time I tasted wine made from the ancient Italian red grape, aglianico.It was produced by the Mastroberardino family from grapes grown in the hilly Taurasi region of Campania, near Naples. The wine had all the depth and complexity of the best – and far more famous – Chiantis and Barolos from further north. This was a revelation for me. Here was a grape that Australian winemakers should be growing: if it makes wine this good in Italy’s hot south, imagine what it could do in our sun-baked and dry vineyards Down Under.

I wasn’t the only one thinking along these lines. Around the same time, the forward-thinking Chalmers family of grape growers near Mildura imported lots of later-ripening, heat-tolerant, climate-appropriate southern Mediterranean grapes not previously grown here – aglianico among them – and started propagating the vines and selling them to other growers.