Winemaker Notes
Ruby red with garnet reflections, the bouquet is fruity, reminiscent of red berries, black cherry and plum with vanilla nuances. Full-bodied, with good balance and firm tannins, flavorful and long on the palate, immediately appealing and versatile.
Excellent with all the typical courses of Italian traditional cooking. It matches well with risotto, pasta and pork.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Richly aromatic, offering cherry pie, plums, red licorice, hibiscus and cocoa on the nose. Medium- to full-bodied, broad yet harmonious, with a velvety texture, a juicy flow and a lingering finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
A bright, fresh wine on the nose, with aromas of ripe cherries, tart blackberries and loads of wild thyme and black olive. On the palate, earth and tang stand up against juicy berries, while acid punches past firm tannins.
Best Buy
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.