Paternopoli, Irpinia — Cult Wine Spotlight

Paterico 2021: The Taurasi Riserva Rewriting Italian Wine History

Few Italian wines have gone from unknown to unmissable as fast as Paterico. First released with the 2019 vintage, it has since been named among the best wines and wineries of Italy by Corriere della Sera, scored 96-99/100 by critics including Antonio Galloni's Vinous and Jancis Robinson's team, and compared by serious tasters to Case Basse, Giacomo Conterno and Domaine Leroy. Its maker, Gian Luca Mazzella, has just released the newest vintage: the Paterico Taurasi Riserva 2021.

From Theology Student to Winemaker

Gian Luca Mazzella's path to making wine was anything but direct. Both branches of his family had long been involved in winemaking, and he grew up with early access to a mentor's cellar stocked with top French names and vintages. He went on to work behind the scenes for years as a consultant to some of fine wine's most respected estates across Burgundy, Germany, Piedmont and Montalcino — all while studying philosophy and theology, and deliberately avoiding making wine his own "job," fearing what he calls being tied to a single place.

That changed when he chose not to take over an estate in Montalcino he had been considering, and instead bought old, high-altitude Aglianico vineyards in Irpinia, a mountainous sub-region of Campania he describes as "the North into the South." His first vintage, the 2019, was bottled in September 2023 in just over 3,000 bottles — and within a year had been poured alongside Haut-Brion, Pingus and a double magnum of 1999 Château Cheval-Blanc at a tasting hosted by his German importer.

Irpinia: A Different Kind of Italian Wine Country

Taurasi DOCG covers only about 1,150 hectares of vineyard, roughly a third of it in the Alta Valle del Calore, where altitude runs 400 to 700 metres above sea level and the gap between day and night temperatures can swing more than 20°C. It is the only place in Italy where harvest can still happen in November — a consequence of farming Aglianico, one of the last late-ripening grapes still standing against a warming climate, with the longest vegetative cycle in the country. Mazzella, only half-joking, calls it his "red Riesling."

His vineyards sit across six parcels around Paternopoli — Pian del Bosco, San Quirico, Graffure, Mattine and a plot at Calore planted with ungrafted, pre-phylloxera vines dating to 1918. Farming is deliberately unforgiving: pruning is pushed back to March to slow the vegetative cycle, the vineyards are never tilled or fertilised, and the vines are never topped — each choice trading yield for concentration. The result is one of the lowest average yields in Italian wine, around 9 hectolitres per hectare across recent vintages, and roughly 4,500 bottles a year from nearly 6 hectares of vines. Only one wine is made: the Paterico.

A Cellar Built for Patience

In the cellar, whole berries are hand-sorted and left to ferment spontaneously for two to three weeks in untoasted wooden vats and ceramic amphorae, with no added sulphides. Maceration runs 70 to 120 days depending on the vat, and Mazzella refuses to use pressed wine at all. Malolactic fermentation happens on its own timeline, often not until the following summer, before the wine moves by gravity into large untoasted barrels 15 metres underground to rest for years ahead of an unfiltered release.

What the Critics Are Saying

The reception has been extraordinary for a producer with only a handful of vintages behind him:

"Uncompromisingly firm, stately, savoury, ageworthy wines... sets a new paradigm for Taurasi."
— John Szabo, Master Sommelier, WineAlign

"The 2021 is pure elegance. Incredibly long finale... structured for a long and glorious evolution. 96/100"
— Eric Guido, Vinous – Antonio Galloni

"It is almost more an essence of Aglianico than a wine."
— Robin Kick, Master of Wine

"Paterico is the evolution of Taurasi: less impactful tannins and richer fruit."
— Luciano Ferraro / James Suckling, Corriere della Sera

The wine's rise culminated in Paterico being named among the 100 best wines and wineries of Italy by Corriere della Sera in 2026, and Gian Luca Mazzella being called winemaker of the year by German critic Manfred Klimek — a remarkable trajectory for an appellation that, outside a handful of collectors, had spent decades in the shadow of Barolo and Brunello.

You can read all the critical acclaim and tasting notes on Gian Luca Mazzella website.

Now Available in Singapore

We're delighted to share that Gian Luca Mazzella's Paterico, including the newly released 2021 Taurasi Riserva, is now available in Singapore — pouring at our favourite restaurant here, and available to purchase directly from our shop. A rare chance to taste, and take home, one of Italy's most talked-about new cult wines outside its native Irpinia.