Winemaker Notes
Pair this wine with lamb, grilled meats, and pasta with ragu sauce.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Bright lemons and oranges highlight raspberry and strawberry overtones. The medium-bodied palate is finely wound up in tightly buttoned tannins and driven along by vertical acidity and umami undertones.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
Deeper, richer, and more concentrated, the 2016 Montepulciano D’Abruzzo Riserva Spelt offers terrific chocolaty, darker berry fruits, spice, new leather, and dried herb-like aromas and flavors. These all carry to a medium-bodied red that has good acidity, some building tannins that stay nicely tucked behind the fruit, and a good finish. It's another outstanding wine from this producer that should have 7-8 years of longevity.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Bright red cherry melds with crushed granite and herbs on the nose of this red. The medium-bodied palate is juicy in a vibrant red-cherry flavor, with a line of crunchy tannins and vibrant acidity propping it up. Dalla Terra Winery Direct.
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.