CAMPANIA WINES

The Food

Can you imagine life without pasta and pizza? You can thank the region of Campania for giving it to the world!

Our pasta comes from pasta’s home – Gragnano, near Naples. It’s extruded through bronze dyes which roughen the surface so the shape holds more sauce. You pay a little more but the quality is unrivalled.

Pizza was invented in Naples too. One day, a resourceful Neapolitan had a bright idea to spread a juicy red tomato over flat bread, add a little cheese and call it pizza!

As with much of Campania’s cuisine it started off as peasant food but was soon adopted by nobility and the rest of the world.

Campania Wines stocks the special ‘00’ flour that give the dough a lightness and elasticity that so typifies a proper Neapolitan pizza.

Browse Campania  Wines selection of foods.

The Wine

There are more than a hundred native grape varieties in Campania, some unknown outside the region.

The Campania region’s success owes much to the varied landscapes and micro-climates.  Viticulture thrives thanks to an abundance of sunshine, dry hot summers, mild winters, a long growing season and volcanic soil.

The coastal Mediterranean breezes blow in from the Tyrrhenian Sea and across the Apennine Mountains to temper the heat, encouraging a bright acidity in the fruit.

The geographical factors contribute to the diverse qualities of Campania wines. For instance, an inland Falanghina grown on slopes where there is more rainfall offers more fragrant notes than those found on the coast, where the climate is more temperate.

The area’s most prestigious wines are the red Taurasi DOCG and three white varieties, Fiano di Avellino, Greco di Tufo and Falanghina.

The king of the reds is the Aglianico, introduced to the area by the Greeks and later cultivated by the Romans.

The whites are Greco, which like Aglianico was brought to Campania by the Greeks, and Fiano, which dates back more than 2000 years (Its name comes from vitis apiana, meaning vine beloved of bees).

The white Falanghina is also highly regarded. Its honeyed sweetness gained it praise from Pliny the Elder, an ancient philosopher who often mentioned in vino veritas (in wine there is truth) in his writings.

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