Wine & Food

Neapolitan cuisine and the region's wines grew from the same soil, quite literally: the San Marzano tomato, found on every genuine Pizza Margherita, ripens on volcanic alluvial land at the foot of Vesuvius. It grows less than twenty kilometers from the Falanghina vineyards. Add Mozzarella di Bufala from the plain south of Salerno, and the region's simplest and most famous combination is already on the table.

Friarielli, a bitter leaf vegetable, almost always appears alongside sausage, and that bitterness is a challenge for any wine. A young Piedirosso, with lively acidity and light tannin, holds its own without amplifying the sausage's spice or the vegetable's bitter edge. A heavy, oak-driven red wine would just seem tired here.

Provolone del Monaco, a robust cow's milk cheese from the slopes of the Sorrento Peninsula, calls for something with more weight. Fat and salt soften hard tannin, which is why an aged Taurasi works better here than a young one. Its rough edges get smoothed away by the cheese, leaving behind ripe fruit and leather.

Frittura di Paranza, the classic plate of small fried fish from the Gulf of Naples, pairs naturally with a Greco di Tufo. Its taut acidity and subtle sulfurous, saline note cut through the oil much the way a squeeze of lemon would. Except the wine keeps it up throughout the whole plate, not just for a fleeting moment.

Things get interesting with desserts, since Campania, unlike other Italian wine regions, doesn't offer a famous sweet wine to go with them. In Naples, babà and sfogliatella are traditionally enjoyed with coffee or a spoonful of limoncello, not wine. Not every wine region has a glass ready for every occasion.