Winemaker Notes
Gastronomic wine par excellence, it goes wonderfully with meat, fish, pasta with tomato and vegetables and is perfect with pizza, fried and tempura.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
More savory than sweet and quite complex, the 2022 Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo Superiore lifts from the glass with an herbal-tinged blend of wild strawberries, wet stone and rose petals. It's soft-textured and juicy to the core, with zesty acidity that enlivens its sour cherry-berry fruit and mineral tones, coming across as energetic and fruit-focused. The 2022 finishes tactile yet fresh, gently gripping the palate with tension as a flourish of sweet spice and licorice lingers on and on. The 2022 Villa Gemma is simply stunning, deep and full of character, showing the combination of the warm and dry vintage and Cerasuolo's inherent vibrancy. Well done!
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James Suckling
An excellent Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo here with some tangy fruit, full of raspberries, grapefruit and pomegranate. Some fresh cranberries, too. Smoothly rendered on the medium- to full-bodied palate with silky tannins and a juicy, appetizing finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose balances sweet aromas of cherry and strawberry with umami notes of leather and warm brick, while the lively palate fizzes with acid and more astringent fruit flavors, and a light dusting of chili powder covers it all.
Whether it’s playful and fun or savory and serious, most rosé today is not your grandmother’s White Zinfandel, though that category remains strong. Pink wine has recently become quite trendy, and this time around it’s commonly quite dry. Since the pigment in red wines comes from keeping fermenting juice in contact with the grape skins for an extended period, it follows that a pink wine can be made using just a brief period of skin contact—usually just a couple of days. The resulting color depends on grape variety and winemaking style, ranging from pale salmon to deep magenta.
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.