Bruce Schoenfeld in Florence

“There are two categories of wine,” Antinori’s Renzo Cotarella says as he spears a mouthful of spaghetti. “With grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, the drinkability of the wine is the priority. Then there are the complicated grapes, like Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo. With those, it isn’t about drinkability. Those are grapes that you have to be in love with.”

He pauses for a first taste from a bottle of Tignanello 2003. “It’s like a woman who can be beautiful – but if you’re not in love with her, she’s nothing to you,” he says. He looks across the table at his wife. “You’re my Pinot Noir,” he says.

 We’re sitting in a trattoria alongside Antinori world headquarters on Via Tornabuoni in Florence. Piero Antinori’s right-hand man in all matters enological and viticultural, Cotarella is the corporate half of one of the wine world’s most successful brother acts. His older sibling Riccardo is the consulting enologist for what seems like a million Italian wines. And together, they own Falesco, the winery they founded in 1979.

Cotarella is also one of the better dinner companions around. Whether he’s talking about world soccer, the American wine market, or dining around Italy, he has insightful theories and opinions, cushioned with charm but expressed forcefully.

He’s just back from California and an examination of the slow-moving Antinori venture there, provisionally called Antica. He remains committed to making Col Solare – the joint investment with Chateau Ste. Michelle in eastern Washington that has shown uneven results – “the best wine in the state.” He keeps a firm hand on Antinori holdings from Prunotto in the Langhe all the way down the Italian peninsula.

But his passion these days is a wine made from the fascinating but seldom-seen grape Aglianico del Vulture. At about the time our spaghetti is being replaced by slabs of rare Tuscan meat, Cotarella requests a bottle of 2003 Bocca di Lupo, from an Antinori-owned winery called Tormaresca on the Adriatic Coast. It’s a wine I haven’t tasted before, or even ever seen.

I’ve enjoyed wines made from the Aglianico del Vulture grape the few times I’ve had them, most notably Feudi di San Gregorio’s Vigne di Mezzo Efesto. But that wine, like nearly all Aglianico del Vulture, is from Basilicata.

Bocca di Lupo comes from the Puglian hills above the Adriatic. It is full but not dense, refreshing but not sharp – and spicy, as Aglianicos tend to be. The spice calls to mind Syrah, but the mouthfeel is all Barolo. The only flaw is a short finish that seems to dissipate on the back of the palate. “Young vines,” Cotarella explains.

Still, I understand his excitement. The evident potential is there. With the terroir on the Adriatic and the commitment of Antinori, he says, this wine will be world-class, “the best manifestation of the grape anywhere in the country.” In fact, Cotarella – a man not given to overstatement – predicts that Bocca di Lupo (current U.S. price: $30) will eventually stand alongside Italy’s deepest and most nuanced wines.

We sip. He sighs. “A wine to fall in love with,” he says. 

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