Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All VintagesBeautiful pear, citrus, and white flowers, as well as a touch of honeyed minerality, emerge from the 2020 Pecorino, a vibrant, refreshing, beautifully balanced white that’s perfect for a hot summer day.
Tenuta del Priore is located in the beautiful countryside of Collecorvino in the province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region of Italy. The winery was started by three Mazzocchetti cousins back in 1973 when they returned to their native Abruzzo region. The cousins left prosperous careers in Rome to farm the land and produce amazing wine.
Fabrizio Mazzoccheti, son of founder Antonio, now guides the winery with the precise and discerning use of his enology degree, vast lifelong winemaking and viticulture experience and his passion for the native varietals and land. His remarkable wife, Giovanna, runs the winery administration with great attention to detail and determination. Together they build on their family’s proud Abruzzi tradition.
Anna and Mario travel to Tenuta del Priore to work with Fabrizio and Giovanna to produce these amazing quality value driven wines. Pecorino and Montepulciano produce the best wines in the abruzzo region.
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.
There are hundreds of white grape varieties grown throughout the world. Some are indigenous specialties capable of producing excellent single varietal wines. Each has its own distinct viticultural characteristics, as well as aroma and flavor profiles.