Winemaker Notes
Bright ruby red color. The bouquet on the nose is a rich, textured expression of dark fruit with balanced oak and smoky notes. On the palate it is dry and warm with elegant tannins and medium body; mature fruit notes accompanied by pleasant acidity give this wine a fresh full character, very refined and long on the finish.
Ideal throughout the meal and can stand up to strong flavors.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2021 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Tonì is dark and savory in the glass, smoldering up with a beguiling blend of crushed ashen stones and dried violets before giving way to crushed blackberries and blood orange. This is elegant and silken in feel, not a hard edge in sight, with a dense wave of ripe red berry fruits that slowly saturate. The 2021 finishes primary and tense, leaving edgy tannins offset by sour citrus notes that maintain freshness. The depth and complexity within are spellbinding, yet patience will be required to experience the 2021's full potential.
Montepulciano is the second most planted red variety in Italy after Sangiovese, though it is achieves its highest potential in the region of Abruzzo. Consistently enticing and enjoyable, Montepulciano enjoys great popularity throughout central and southern Italy as well. A tiny bit grows with success in California, Argentina and Australia. Somm Secret—Montepulciano is also the name of a village in Tuscany where, confusingly, they don’t grow the Montepulciano grape at all! Sangiovese shines in yet another Tuscan village, here making the reputable wine called Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
A warm, Mediterranean vine-growing paradise, in Abruzzo, the distance from mountains to seaside is relatively short. The Apenniness, which run through the center of Italy, rise up on its western side while the Adriatic Sea defines its eastern border.
Wine composition tends to two varieties: Abruzzo’s red grape, Montepulciano and its white, Trebbiano. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo can come in a quaffable, rustic and fruity style that generally drinks best young. It is also capable of making a more serious style, where oak aging tames its purely wild fruit.
Trebbiano in Abruzzo also comes in a couple of varieties. Trebbiano Toscana makes a simple and fruity white. However when meticulously tended, the specific Trebbiano d’Abruzzo-based white wines can be complex and long-lived.
In the region’s efforts to focus on better sites and lower yields, vine acreage has decreased in recent years while quality has increased.