Irpia Campi Taurasini ''Soge is a fine DOP red wine from the 2012 vintage, made from Aglianico grapes, the same carefully selected grapes from which the Taurasi wine is made.
Aglianico wine needs a lot of time to mature, and Agricola Bellaria has chosen the period from October to November, when the extreme temperature variations between day and night allow for a range of characteristics.
The vinification process begins by identifying the best grapes most suitable for use. As for the Soge, the area is located between Montefalcione and Taurasi, two towns in the province of Avellino, among the few that are allowed to cultivate Aglianico.
For the production of the main wine, Agricola Bellaria decided to reduce production from the 100 tonnes of grapes per hectare set by the regulator to 60 tonnes, ensuring that only the best grapes are used for quality wine.
The process begins with manual harvesting to preserve the grapes' natural characteristics before transferring them to the cellar. Here, the grapes are lightly pressed and the resulting must is transferred to three different stainless steel tanks, which utilise yeasts of different varieties to improve the organoleptic characteristics of the grapes. The must is then contacted with the skins in the fermentation stage.
Agricola Bellaria decided to maintain an initial temperature of 30° to extract as much ruby red colour from the grapes as possible, and then lower it to 18° to restore the wine's true aroma and keep the flavour unchanged.
During fermentation, carbon dioxide escapes from the tank and pushes the grape skins upwards, forming a compact layer known as the "cap" that arises above the mass of must during fermentation. To prevent this from happening, three times a day the so-called wallowing, or the action of mechanical pressure exerted from above through a piston acting on the cap to break it. In this way the cap falls piecemeal into the wort below. Finally, one proceeds to separate the solid part of the wine from the liquid part.
Before bottling, to complete the whole process, there is protein stabilisation, which lasts about 15 days, and wine blending, where the wine is stored at temperatures below 0° to ensure that the turbidity is retained and it does not decant in the bottle.