Quintodecimo Grande Cuvée Luigi Moio 2020

96 points - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, October 2022

This is the wine Moio fans have been anxiously awaiting. The Quintodecimo 2020 Irpinia Grande Cuvée Luigi Moio is a carefully contemplated blend of 40% Fiano, 40% Greco and 20% Falanghina (with percentages that will change according to vintage). Only 4,600 bottles were produced in this inaugural vintage, and this wine is hitting the market now, following 14 months of bottle age. The idea was to create a "super" blended white that could represent the best of southern Italy, and these results are simply terrific. Some 60% of the wine is fermented in oak, and the blend is submitted to regular stirring of the lees. The wine is velvety rich in texture with silky fruit weight and lasting sensations of summer peach, quince, acacia honey and fragrant tuberose. All that beauty is tightly framed by etched notes of salinity or crushed seashell. This is an outstanding effort.

I'm not sure if Luigi Moio is a professor who wears a winemaker's hat or if he is a winemaker who wears a professor's hat. His vintage presentations lean into academia, his tasting room is run with the rigor of a lecture hall, and his vineyards are planted with criteria that only a mathematician or scholar could fully comprehend. I visited the Quintodecimo estate located in Mirabella Eclano early this summer. It was my first visit to an estate that I dearly hoped to visit for many years. You know you've arrived when, past a hill in the road, the landscape opens onto an expanse of neatly manicured vines perfectly topped and trimmed. It feels like you are looking at a painting on a museum wall. I am the first journalist to see Professor Luigi's Moio's latest contribution to viticulture. He planted a special spiral vineyard spaced exactly according to the Fibonacci sequence. The Golden Ratio is a symbol of nature's harmony. This sacred geometry resonates throughout the natural world in leaves, pine cones or a snail's shell. To the professor and his family, this vineyard is a pledge to harmony in grape growing, themes that are dear when facing a changing climate. At Quintodecimo, the winemaking philosophy is simple. The best vineyard sites are selected for each individual wine. Great care is taken to understand soils, exposures and microclimates. And nothing is taken for granted. Production focuses on three white wines and three reds. The whites are the Fiano di Avellino Exultet, the Greco di Tufo Giallo d'Arles and the Irpinia Falanghina Via del Campo. These wines draw their fruit from the villages of Lapio, Tufo and Mirabella Eclano. The reds are the Taurasi Riserva Vigna Quintodecimo, the Taurasi Riserva Grande Cerzito and the Irpinia Aglianico Terra d'Eclano. These expressions represent selections from inside the Quintodecimo estate and Mirabella Eclano. There is an exciting new addition. Starting with the 2020 vintage, Quintodecimo is launching its Irpinia Grande Cuvée Luigi Moio. This blend of partially oak-fermented Fiano, Greco and Falanghina seeks to raise the bar for white wines from southern Italy. Having been granted a sneak peek at the 2021 vintage, I am positive that it will be a game changer. - Monica Larner