There are wines that demand the spotlight. Wines you’ve been saving, wines you feel the need to open by candlelight, perhaps with Sam Cooke on the box or a perfectly paired dinner on the table. Special wines of ceremony.

But sometimes you’re far away from that perfect table, frantically shuffling between 50 open browser tabs, juggling phone calls, and mentally rolodexing all the tasks to fill your day, and in the middle of it all someone sets a wine in front of you that, at first sip, simply commands you to presence. It exudes a confidence that unfolds gradually across your palate but snaps you to attention, and suddenly the only thought in your mind is, “what is that?”

Luigi Tecce’s Satyricon 2020 saunters into the lucky drinker’s consciousness like Javier Bardem in a supporting role, its spicy, subtly tense frame containing a midpalate springloaded with fruit and supple tannin that’s just a tiny bit gruff, like five-day stubble on an astronaut after a trip through orbit. Its minerality diffuses like prismed light through the slowly cascading fruit on the finish. Its presence fills the room, a joyful reminder that in wine we never know when we’ll collide with a revelation.

This is why it’s all the more surprising, but perhaps appropriate, that this is the introductory wine to the Tecce range. Tecce’s vineyards total around five hectares between Paternopoli and Castelfranci in Taurasi's southern subzone, with Satyricon sourced from the younger vines around Castelfranci. At 500 to 700 meters this is one of Taurasi’s highest-elevation growing areas, and it makes a difference: due to the cooler microclimate, Tecce typically harvests in November.

Long hangtimes and a relaxed, even ripening period late in the season yield that arresting complexity, even in what is theoretically the lineup’s younger, more easy-drinking wine. Satyricon also sees elevage in botti. It’s made quite seriously, and it tastes like it: The quiet intensity and soul here tell me this wine is going to age wonderfully. But it’s also a wine for right now–a wine that will meet you exactly where you are.

Luigi Tecce, Irpinia Aglianico “Satyricon”, 2020 $46.99