With the memory of Thursday night's Carafa Taurasi fresh in my mind, last night I opened this one-year-older D'Angelo Basilicata for comparison.
I would never have guessed they were from the same grape.
The Taurasi is a big wine, full-bodied and black fruited. It also seems, in retrospect and through the other wine's lens, modern. It was good wine and I had no complaint, but I did not connect with it.
But the D'Angelo, on the other hand? This was an 'a-HA!' moment. This is the bigger, better wine down the path from the Terradora that first made me wonder who had been keeping aglianico such a secret. This was a lot more like what I was hoping for. Medium-bodied, garnet color with orange rim. A nose to die for with heady aromas of fruitcake, leather, graphite and a whiff of good brett. Complex taste of sawdust, cinnamon, walnuts, black Mission figs and cherries. Good acidity and a long finish. In style, very traditional, maybe even rustic. Still has some tannins so there's room for further development, but man oh man this is drinking so well now and is so precisely what I love and want to love more of, I suspect I'll not be able to keep my hands off my remaining five bottles in order to find out.