Winemaker Notes
"Pale yellow with gold-green highlights. Youthfully reticent but very pure and penetrating aromas of lime peel, lemon, almond flower and minerals. Deceptively open on entry in the manner of a great Chablis from Les Clos, with a suave set of citrus oil-accented flavours of orchard fruit and guava. Then much more like a Chablis from Blanchots on its lifted, fine-grained and extremely long mineral finish. citrus oil. A powerful, broad wine yet almost magically weightless as is absolutely typical of Fonte Canale, one of Italy’s best 10-15 white wines in practically every vintage. The 2020 is good to drink now but will be so much better five years from now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 2027 – 2035" 96 points - Ian D'Agata,Terroirsense.com (May, 2023)
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2020 Trebbiano d'Abruzzo Fonte Canale is as gorgeous as ever. It lifts up with a minty freshness that gives way to sliced green apples, ginger and enriching almond paste notes. Texturally deep, it floods that palate with ripe orchard fruits offset by a stern saline tinge, coming across as elegant yet also salty, nearly sultry in character. It leaves the senses drenched in primary concentration and sour citrus, saline and intense, yet still watering for more.
Compared to other white wine-producing varieties, Trebbiano claims some of the most vineyard acreage on a global scale. There are six distinct varieties with Trebbiano as part of their name in Italy alone. Trebbiano Toscano, one of the most popular, is deliciously light and crisp. Trebbiano d’Abruzzo actually has some aging potential when handled carefully. Somm Secret—Known as Ugni Blanc in France, Trebbiano is responsible for the whites in Southwest, France called Gascogne Blanc.
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.