Titolo

Titolo is the wine Elena Fucci built her estate around from 2000, from the family vineyard at Contrada Solagna del Titolo above Barile, at 600 m on Monte Vulture. The 2016 back label carries the data: Titolo vineyard, exposure S-SE, altitude 600 m, vine age 50-70 years, volcanic soil, unfiltered, bottle 8,676 of 28,000.

The producer's own page describes the soil as alternating layers of volcanic rock (pozzolana), lava, lapilli and ash with bands of clay, representing the volcano's successive eruptions and pauses. It describes the vines as short Guyot, alberello and the local capanno vulturino, with field bean grown on the estate and turned in on alternate rows.

Harvest is by hand toward the end of October, which the US importer Volio calls one of the latest in Italy. The grapes come in small crates, are sorted and destemmed and fermented as near-whole berries in steel, with the maceration lasting as long as the fermentation, then racked and soft-pressed. Malolactic and twelve months of ageing follow in 200 l barriques, half of them new, with twelve more months in bottle, per the producer. Volio's current page keeps the 50% new but splits the wood between 200 l barriques and 500 l tonneaux, while its 2022 tech sheet says all-new French barriques and six months in bottle.

The back label also carries the estate's own note on 2016: a year close to 2015 and, in its words, "the standard of season in Vulture", with winter snow, a fresh and windy spring with good rain, and a summer of wide day-night temperature swings.