Greco

The greco family is a large family of white Italian grapes of Greek origin, as the name suggests. A vine as noble as it is ancient, its cultivation dates back at least to the first century B.C., in Roman times, as attested by Virgil, who mentions this typology in the Georgics as "aminea gemella". Initially widespread in Vesuvius, greco is now present in various Italian regions, sometimes with different names. In Calabria, it gives life to the most important regional whites, of Mediterranean saline minerality, but also to the Greco di Bianco DOC, a sweet wine made from dried grapes of very ancient origin. It is also present in Puglia, where it gives pleasant wines, which are vegetal and floral, which also make good spumante or sparkling wines.

But the most significant expression is certainly the one from Campania, and in particular in the Greco di Tufo variety, a small town in Irpinia where an important DOCG is dedicated to this wine. Straw-coloured with golden hues, it expresses fruity fragrances of yellow, exotic, ripe fruit flesh, but above all, and in particular Tufo, chalky, mineral, straight, sharp fragrances, which can veer towards hydrocarbon with age. Of good softness already when young, greco, usually in only steel, is definitely less long-lived than fiano, but expresses from the beginning a pleasant persistence, with hints of almond.