Salvatore Molettieri, Taurasi Riserva “Vigna Cinque Querce”

Not long ago, we offered a 2013 Taurasi from the great Salvatore Molettieri that stayed with me long after the bottle was finished. I even listed it among my Top 10 Wines of 2021 in our recently launched newsletter, and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Taurasi is one of the most historically important wine appellations in Southern Italy, and plenty of legendary vintages have come from there, but up until recently, most of the attention was focused on a single, iconic producer: Mastroberardino. Only in the late 1980s and ’90s did a new generation of producers, including Molettieri, begin to diversify and develop the region into an appellation to be reckoned with.When I was first getting into wine, a lot of these producers were releasing some of their earliest takes on Taurasi and its intensely flavorful Aglianico grape. Many were massive in structure, which served them well with the critics, who at the time were enamored with power. Nicknamed the “Barolo of the South,” Taurasi w