Winemaker Notes
#64 Wine Enthusiast Top 100 of 2020
The 2019 Tiberio Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo is a bright pinkish-red color. Fresh, pure aromas and flavors of red cherry, raspberry and orange peel. Very juicy with outstanding definition, lovely acid-fruit balance, crisp, clean, floral finish with sneaky concentration.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This richly hued pink wine starts off with a nose of freshly pressed cherries and black- berries—stems and all. While the fruit is intense and concentrated, there are earthy base notes of herbs and bramble that tie it all together. It’s full yet fresh on the palate, showing amazing purity to the berry fruit flavors. Slicks of crushed stone and herbs keep this lifted and energized. It’s an excellent offering from this estate winery located in the Pescara province of Abruzzo. Editors' Choice.
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.