Winemaker Notes
Rich and ripe dark cherry fruit, along with attractive spicy, smoky notes. Fleshy and full, with surprising depth and length.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The warmth but freshness of the wide array of forest fruit is beguiling, opening with dark cherries, blackberries, black raspberries and undergrowth. The palate is taut and finely wound in subtly wrought tannins and steely acidity. Medium-to full-bodied and medium-chewy on the finish. Drink now.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Released under screw cap, the 2016 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from Masciarelli offers a charming, medium-bodied, savory style as well as notes of spiced cherries, cedary herbs, leather, and dried flowers. It’s nicely balanced, medium-bodied, and has a clean, dry finish that keeps you coming back to the glass. It’s about as gulpable as they come and is well worth seeking out. I suspect it’s a smoking value and would be one heck of a house red.
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.