Michele Perillo is another excellent small farmer and winemaker. He comes from Castelfranci, in the south-east corner of the appellation, about half an hour away from the town of Taurasi itself. His first bottled vintage was 1999, before which he sold his organically-farmed fruit to other wineries. He grows everything he makes, and he vinifies Taurasi, Taurasi Riserva and the local white Coda di Volpe, all of which are expressive, distinctive, carefully made, great examples of their type. Michele himself is modest, but his enthusiasm for his work is obvious as soon as you meet him.  Three-quarters of his Aglianico vineyards were planted in 1930, and are trained in a kind of old-style pergola called raggiera (pictured), while the remainder were planted in 1980. The younger vineyards were all planted with cuttings collected in the fields of the older sites over the years. The form of Aglianico found in Castelfranci looks different from that of Taurasi proper; the bunches here are longer and looser. The locals say they look like a horse's tail and call them 'coda di cavallo.’  The altitude ranges from 470-500 meters (about 1,600 feet) above sea level, which is high for red wine grapes. The grapes are picked extremely late, in late October or early November, de-stemmed and crushed, then macerated at low temperature for three days before fermentation starts (using indigenous yeast). Maceration lasts for about three to four weeks, depending on the vintage, then the wine is aged in used 225-liter neutral barriques for a year, then further aged in 2000-liter barrels for a second year before being aged in the cellar a further five years before being sold. Michele's Taurasi shows the classic flavors of the region; red and black fruit, cedar, sandalwood, pipe tobacco and spice and a savory beefy character that sometimes reminds one of a Barolo from Monforte.  It finishes with a fair amount of fine tannin (the comparison with Barolo in flavors, structure, and age-worthiness is inevitable); what differentiates this from other Taurasi I've tasted is its exuberant fresh acidity, a factor, I think of the vineyard’s altitude.  At a dozen years past the vintage, this is the perfect Aglianico for a long-simmered lamb stew with plenty of herbs, tomato and mushroom in the mix.