Oliver’s Taranga Fiano 2022

Fiano is perhaps the most exciting of the new white varieties we are seeing from Italy and abroad. From the Campania region of Italy, this grape is all about texture. To enhance that, the team use indigenous yeasts and have started to include small portions matured in old French oak. The team also have a habit of including a different statement about the year on each wine in the Small Batch range, though these sometimes seem more like inside jokes than worldly wisdom. For this year’s Fiano, ‘the year that we got a golf cart called Ollie to take tours around Taranga Vineyard’. Make of it what you will.

This is a really good example of the variety. Pale lemon in colour, there is some early complexity and yet the wine remains fresh and crisp, with notes of nuts, herbs, apples and pears. A hint of stonefruit. Really well constructed, there is power on the palate and impressive length. And of course, that seductive texture. This will drink beautifully for two to three years, likely longer, and may even rate a notch higher in that time. Lots to like here. Loved the 2021 – this is just as good.