Quintodecimo· Mirabella Eclano, Irpinia

Luigi Moio is a professor of enology at the University of Naples, and the man who wrote much of what the modern wine world knows about aroma chemistry. When someone with that command of the science decides to make his own wine, I want to taste it. He founded Quintodecimo in 2001 on volcanic slopes in Irpinia, east of Naples, between 400 and 550 metres.

What that combination of rigour and volcanic ground produces is the part I find compelling: wines that are technically faultless and yet completely untamed. The Exultet Fiano di Avellino is among the most complex whites of southern Italy, the weight of a white Burgundy carried on the salinity of volcanic soil, and it holds for a decade in bottle.

The Greco di Tufo runs leaner and sharper. The Taurasi from Via del Campo is Aglianico at its most uncompromising, dark, tannic, built for fifteen to twenty years. The estate said its 2018 would be ready in 2030, and I see no reason to doubt them.