The Italian White Wine Made from Grapes that Grow up Trees
And It's Not Just the Trees that Make Asprinio di Aversa “Ad Alberata” Exceptional
[Read “Maybe a Grapevine Should Grow up a Tree.”]
NORTH OF NAPLES BUT CLOSE BY, in a broad area around the town of Aversa, you can see occasional tall lines of poplar trees carrying grapevines. Traditionally, they rise to 15 to 20 meters and more in the air; the suspended vines form green curtains. The wine they make is white, sometimes sparkling, sometimes still. It’s Asprinio di Aversa — that’s the DOC (the Denominazione di Origine Controllata); Asprinio is the grape. Most Asprinio now is grown on conventional low trellises, but about 15 producers retain vines that are alberate, suspended from living trees. Very little Asprinio di Aversa wine, however, is purely ad alberata. Although so much about the wine is exceptional, I have to be clear from the start that as important as the wine seems to me for itself and as part of the complex and fascinating food and drink of Naples and the surrounding region of Campania, including Asprinio’s connection to pizza, the wine can be very difficult to find. The wine attracts limited attention; it’s almost unknown outside Italy. Right now in the United States, you would be lucky to find a stray bottle, and it’s not clear that more will arrive any time soon. When I first called the producer Salvatore Martusciello and explained that I was writing an article, he responded with an Italian-accented “Wow!”