Appellation · Italy
Greco di Tufo
A small Irpinian appellation on sulphur-bearing tufa, making the firmest and most structured white in Campania.
Dry, full-bodied white with citrus, green almond and a firm, slightly grippy texture. High acidity and a savoury, smoky finish.
About Greco di Tufo
Greco di Tufo is made around the village of Tufo in Irpinia, on volcanic tufa that also carries sulphur — mined here commercially until the twentieth century.
Greco is a late-ripening, thick-skinned variety that gives a firmer, more structured and more tannic white than Fiano, sometimes with a faintly smoky character.
It is one of the very few Italian whites with enough grip to be described as having tannin, and it stands up to substantial food.
What the name means
- Legal name
- Greco di Tufo DOCG
- Type
- Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)
- Set by
- MASAF
- Recognised
- 2003
- Regulates
- Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.
Everything a DOC controls, plus a compulsory analytical and tasting examination before bottling and a numbered state seal on the neck. The tier above DOC in regulatory strictness, which is not the same as guaranteed quality.
A minimum of 85% Greco. Covers eight communes around the village of Tufo.
Grapes
Wines from here
Soil and geology
- Underlying geology
- Volcanic tufa, with sulphur deposits mined commercially in the nineteenth century
- Soils
- Clay and tufa
- Drainage
- Moderate
- Water holding
- Moderate
What it does to the vine. Clay over tufa holds water through the summer on a variety that ripens late, and the ground is poor enough to keep vigour low.
WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.
Rules worth knowing
Confirmed in the EU register
Greco di Tufo is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-IT-A0236, protected at EU level since 1973.
Article 107 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013
Specification published: Official Journal C 61, 22.02.2021 · Official Journal
Only the rules that change what to expect in the glass or on the label. WineHQ does not reproduce production specifications, and each entry carries the date it was last checked because appellation rules change.
The designation is confirmed above. WineHQ has not read this appellation’s production specification, so it publishes no yields, ageing minima or permitted-variety lists for it — those come from the document linked above, not from a summary of it.
What to eat, and how to serve it
Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.
Where to go next
Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.
- Fiano di Avellino — A hill appellation inland from Naples making one of southern Italy’s few genuinely ageworthy dry whites.
- Taurasi — Aglianico grown high in the Campanian hills — the "Barolo of the South", and a comparison that for once holds up.
- Campania — Southern Italy’s most serious region for indigenous varieties, with Aglianico, Fiano and Greco all grown on volcanic soils.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Italian DOP and IGP wine register — Ministero dell’agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF)