The last leg in the ascent of the Corno Grande, the highest peak in Italy’s Apennine chain, requires that you do some “scrambling”—that is, crawling on all fours over loose clods of shale, each step unleashing a mini-avalanche of rock and dust. It’s not that tough, to be truthful, and on a clear day the reward for reaching the summit is a view of both the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas. Unfortunately, today is not a clear day.
It’s late August, and what was a sticky and humid morning at lower elevations is a windy, cold, and cloudy afternoon on the Corno Grande. This ten-thousand-foot hunk of limestone is the centerpiece of the Gran Sasso d’Italia, or “great rock of Italy,” the cluster of mountains that dominates northwestern Abruzzo. While the verdant meadows of the Alto Adige or Valle d’Aosta might bring to mind a scene from The Sound of Music, the uplands of Abruzzo (and neighboring Molise) are more barren, drained of color, giving the area around the Gran Sasso the look of a lunar surface. Things might be different on a brighter day, but standing atop the Corno Grande today prompts mixed emotions. Even with all of the chatty fellow climbers sprawled out on the rocks around us, we’re feeling kind of dreary, dissociated. Maybe we’re just out of shape.
Still, there’s something very lonely about this place. True, it is a destination for hikers, climbers, and skiers from all over the world, but the Gran Sasso is hardly a bustling resort. In fact, it is starkly unpopulated. At Campo Imperatore, which is less a town than a point on a map, there is a single mountain hotel, creatively named the Albergo Campo Imperatore. It sits at about seven thousand feet, at the top of a chairlift that originates in the tiny village of Assergi down below, and is famous for being the hotel in which the deposed Mussolini was held prisoner for a time toward the end of World War II. Besides the chairlift, all that connects the hotel to civilization below is a two-lane road that snakes across a plateau of sawgrass and strewn boulders, populated only by wild horses and the occasional wolf. Aspen this is definitely not.
Albergo Campo Imperatore and its handful of satellite buildings (which house things like a ranger station and a small bar) are the only evidence of development in Campo Imperatore. The hulking, vaguely Alpine-looking albergo isn’t as populated in the summer as it must be in winter, and it’s hard not to walk through it with-out thinking of the hotel that Jack Nicholson bloodied up in The Shining. Outside, there’s the parking lot, a smattering of ski lifts, and a vast stretch of nothing. The Gran Sasso is called “the roof of Italy,” and with good reason: The mountains are ruggedly beautiful, of course, but all of the things that make Italy Italian—the glinting canals of Venice, St. Peter’s Square in Rome, a tiny osteria in Florence, whatever—are a world away.
This made the Albergo Campo Imperatore a good spot in which to hide Mussolini after he was double-crossed by King Vittorio Emmanuele III and arrested, in July 1943, as the Allies began to gain the upper hand in World War II. The Germans saw the rescue of Mussolini as their only way to maintain a foothold in Italy against advancing Allied troops—their thinking was that Italians loyal to Mussolini would stay on the German side. So upon learning of his confinement at the albergo, the Germans organized an aerial attack on Campo Imperatore. To maintain an element of surprise, they descended on the hotel in gliders, most of which crash-landed in the rocky meadow in front of the hotel; other soldiers came up via the chairlift. The Italian troops guarding Mussolini offered no resistance, enabling the Germans to spirit him away in the one plane they managed to land correctly on the plateau. It was a big propaganda coup, if little else, for the Germans, and there are numerous pictures to be found of Il Duce, looking like a Mafia don in his black overcoat and black fedora, being whisked to a waiting SS plane.
After scrambling up and down the Corno Grande, we warm up in the Campo Imperatore with some caffè, take a look at Mussolini’s old room, and try to shrug off the Shining vibe of the whole place. On the drive back down to Assergi, a limpid afternoon sun peeks through the clouds on a few occasions. As if on cue, a group of about a dozen wild horses bolts across the broad expanse ahead. There’s still no sight of the Adriatic, but more of the green, inhabited Abruzzo comes into view. With the mountain winds whipping through the open car windows, it’s as if we’re flying, like old Benito being carried off more than half a century ago. Soon we’re in Assergi, with a tour bus advancing from the south, and the (self-imposed) exile comes to a not-so-glorious end.
The Apennines define Abruzzo and neighboring Molise, which were regarded as one entity until Molise was granted regional status in 1963. Nearly all of Italy’s regions have both a coastal stretch and a mountainous interior—and all of the cultural contrasts that come with that. But in Abruzzo and to a lesser extent Molise, the physical distances between mountains and sea are especially short. Although brodetto (fish stew) is a classic dish along Abruzzo’s hundred-mile coastline, the region is known more for meat-based mountain fare: the food of the shepherds, cattle ranchers, and other rugged types who inhabit the craggy interior.
As in Calabria to the south, Abruzzo and Molise are cut off from their neighbors by a forbidding Apennine wall, which in some ways dilutes their identities as regions. There are plenty of things that are uniquely Abruzzese—like saffron, a specialty of the interior uplands, or DeCecco pasta, made in the town of Fara San Martino. But there aren’t many well-known destinations in either Abruzzo or Molise to root them in foreigners’ memories. Unless you’re a rock climber, skier, or naturalist (the Parco Nazionale d’Abruzzo, south of the Gran Sasso, is one of Italy’s biggest national parks and the only place in the country where bears are found), chances are the Abruzzo and Molise are not on your Italy hit list, despite their proximity to Rome.
As wine zones, too, they tend to be overlooked, and yet the Abruzzo is the fifth-most productive region in the country. Its annual wine output is almost double that of Tuscany’s, even though Tuscany has nearly twice as much vineyard area. And this is the story in a nutshell: Although the Abruzzesi have proved better than many of their neighbors in creating branded, bottled wines, theirs has still been a culture of mass production. The local industry is dominated by giant cooperative wineries such as Cantina Tollo, Casal Thaulero, Casal Bordino, and Citra (the favored screw-top wine on Alitalia flights), which account for close to 80 percent of the region’s commercial wine production.
Abruzzo’s only real star among private vintners is the reclusive Edoardo Valentini, whose estate is considered one of Italy’s best—but whose wines are not only hard to find but difficult to comprehend. And in Molise, there is essentially one producer from whom an American consumer can buy wine: Alessio Di Majo Norante, whose property in Campomarino, not far from Molise’s Adriatic coast, is a source of some excellent full-bodied reds and fragrant whites. There are a number of other notable names, but they’re generally drowned under the tidal wave of Abruzzese wine. For most international consumers, the Abruzzo is a “wine lake”: a place for cheap, plush, and (despite their brand names) anonymous supermarket wines. But change is afoot.
If this whole story sounds familiar, it’s because the entire Italian south is going through something similar: the evolution from bulk-wine producer to boutique-wine producer—or, more accurately, from a strictly indus-trial wine culture to one in which an artisanal product can have commercial success. Wine critics, even Italian ones, take on a condescending tone when talking about the wines of the Mezzogiorno, treating the southern Italians like hyperactive children who need a little structure and discipline in their lives before they can do great things. What goes without saying is that many better-regarded French (and northern Italian) wines are in reality a good part Abruzzese, since so much Abruzzo bulk wine is still shipped north for blending. Is a great wine one that moves you on some physical or emotional level, or is it a wine that is consistent from year to year? Like so many of their southern-Italian peers, the Abruzzesi can have it both ways.
The pre-autostrada isolation of the Abruzzo, and the somewhat depressed economy it engendered, is one reason why the local wine culture has been so dominated by large co-ops. Historically, small landowners in the Abruzzo had little choice but to band together in order to survive, and the Abruzzesi co-ops were more successful than most in creating branded wines, however generic they may have tasted. Trebbiano d’Abruzzo and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo have consistently been two of the most exported DOC wines in Italy, which has been good for the hard-working vintners of the region but not so good for the image of Italian wines abroad.
Abruzzo has all of the requisite elements for making great wine: rolling foothills that spill down toward the sea, a desirable mix of mountain and maritime air, and a relatively dry climate—particularly when weather patterns originate in the west by way of the Apennines. (When the opposite happens and storms approach from the east, as in 1996 and 1999, the mountains trap the moisture, resulting in a subpar vintage.) Most of the Abruzzo’s vineyards are situated along a series of river valleys that run from the Apennines to the Adriatic, and the west-east orientation of these vineyards allows for all-day exposure to the sun. Some locales, including the Abruzzo’s largest mass of vineyards south of Chieti, can suffer from excesses of humidity, soil fertility, and heat. But the north—particularly along the border with the Marche, where the Apennines reach especially close to the sea—boasts altitudes, soil conditions, and microclimates comparable to those of the Marche, Umbria, and even Tuscany.
What has held Abruzzo back, critically speaking, is its chosen raw materials. For reasons that seem largely economic, the favored white grape of the Abruzzo is trebbiano, the most productive (and therefore most planted) white variety in Italy. Known as ugni blanc in France (and thought of first and foremost as a grape for brandy, not wine), trebbiano is the grape most foreign consumers consider the benchmark Italian white: high in acid, low in natural extract, producing chalky, faintly aromatic wines just about everywhere it is planted. In certain instances, a well-chilled, lightly floral trebbiano is just the thing to offset the heat of a brodetto abruzzese (fish stew, typically more heavily spiced in Abruzzo than elsewhere along the Adriatic). But these days, white-wine drinkers want power. Occasionally, Trebbiano d’Abruzzo can give a little bit more, but it is still a white that walks softly—albeit with a big, acidic stick.
Up until 1996, when the Controguerra DOC was created in the northern reaches of Abruzzo, Trebbiano d’Abruzzo was the region’s only classified white wine. Created in 1972, the Trebbiano d’Abruzzo DOC zone covers most of the region. This naturally allows for wide variations in style, but generally speaking Trebbiano d’Abruzzo doesn’t deviate too widely: It is light and crisp, with faint hints of apple and wildflower in the aroma and a pronounced acidity on the palate.
Some texts say that Trebbiano d’Abruzzo is not made from trebbiano at all but from the lesser-known bombino bianco, a variety also found in Puglia; in the Trebbiano d’Abruzzo DOC discipline, in fact, bombino is listed as a synonym for trebbiano. Regardless of which variety it actually is, however, the end results have tended to be less than memorable. As a result, many Abruzzese producers are doing the predictable (and commercially prudent) thing and combining trebbiano with more forceful varieties. Chardonnay is one of the favored blending partners, and in some cases winemakers are throwing over trebbiano altogether—some of the most popular Abruzzo whites these days are in fact chardonnays. These include the “Marina Cvetic” bottling from the Masciarelli winery near Chieti; “Cenalba” chardonnay from Dino Illuminati in Controguerra; and “Roccesco” chardonnay from the Orlandi Contucci Ponno estate in Roseto degli Abruzzi, where young proprietor Marina Orlandi Contucci has invested heavily in the French duo of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.
Most of these producers stick with trebbiano for well-priced base bottlings, but the one winemaker who seems to really believe in the variety is Edoardo Valentini. His small estate is in Loreto Apruntino, west of Pescara in central Abruzzo, and he has developed the reputation as something of a mad scientist. Considered in wine circles to be the dean of Abruzzese winemakers and an innovator on a par with Italian giants such as Angelo Gaja, Valentini has found a way to get more from trebbiano (or bombino, depending on whom you ask) than anyone else in Italy.
Valentini uses what many producers consider an outmoded system of vine training: the tendone, in which the vines are draped over high trellises to form canopies. The word tendone has become a dirty one in Italian viticultural circles, because it is most readily associated with giant flatland vineyards in the Veneto and Emilia-Romagna, where the large trellises allow for mass-production of grapes. Critics of the tendone say that it encourages overproduction and that its canopy of leaves excessively shades the grapes, inhibiting the ripening process. Valentini combats this with meticulous pruning and extremely close-cropping, so that each plant produces a meager amount of fruit.
Having achieved a level of uncommon ripeness in his trebbiano, Valentini then ferments and ages his wines in large oak vats, resulting in a yeasty, creamy richness that adds complexity to trebbiano’s notoriously faint perfume. In one sense, it is difficult to taste Valentini trebbianos because there is really nothing to compare them to: Rich and round, with oxidative notes of caramel and nuts overlapping their plush apple-and-pear fruitiness, the Valentini whites are known to age well for years. He typically delays releasing them for several years after the vintage, having found a way to maintain the life-preserving acidity of the trebbiano grape while also extracting more flavor from it.
Other Abruzzese producers with an eye toward the international market have experimented with barrel fermentation for their trebbianos, but the result is often a wine that is bigger and oakier but not necessarily better. Among those who are getting more than average from the grape are Masciarelli (whose “Marina Cvetic” trebbiano has gotten a fair amount of press), Illuminati, and the Cataldi Madonna winery in the high plains of Ofena. On the whole, however, the best thing to do with Trebbiano d’Abruzzo is not complicate it too much: Chill it well and crack it open when you’re grilling whole fish. One thing you can say for certain about it is that the price is usually right.
As mentioned elsewhere, rosé wine has gotten a bad rap in the United States thanks to white zinfandel, prompting many American importers to pass over the rosati of their Italian clients. This is a big mistake. Throughout southern Italy, and particularly in the coastal areas, a good dry rosato is a prized bottle of wine.
Abruzzo’s classic DOC red, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, becomes known as Cerasuolo when it is vinified in a rosé style. (The word cerasuolo means cherry-red, an apt descriptor for the deeply colorful rosati produced from the montepulciano grape.) Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Cerasuolo is produced by employing a short maceration of the juice with the skins of the grapes, after which the lightly colored juice is separated and vinified much like a white wine, with minimal exposure to oxygen. Because the montepulciano grape is high in natural coloring pigments, Cerasuolo rosés tend to go well beyond pink in color and well beyond pink in flavor; they are some of the heartiest rosati to be found in Italy, with hints of strawberry, dried cherry, and exotic spices such as orange peel and cinnamon.
Most of the top producers in Abruzzo make a Cerasuolo, and thankfully some of them are exported. As a general rule, it’s best to look for recent vintages of these wines, because their relative lack of tannins makes them, like all rosés, subject to more rapid oxidation. Italians typically drink their rosati during the summer following the vintage, the better to preserve the wines’ bright fruit flavors and crisp acidity.
At a minimum it’s nice to have some rosato around for summertime apéritifs, but the versatility of rosé with food is often overlooked. The Abruzzesi, for example, are known for their liberal use of peperoncini (chili peppers) in the kitchen, in preparations such as maccheroni alla chitarra (pasta “guitar style,” named for the way the sheets of pasta are cut by pressing them through steel wires), which is dressed with a simple but spicy tomato-peperoncino mixture. Although the soft red Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a good “pillow” for that chili heat, a Cerasuolo not only cools it down but points up the peperoncino flavor with a little spiciness of its own. The same goes for mouth-tingling Abruzzese seafood specialties such as polpi in purgatorio—octopus cooked in oil, garlic, tomato, and lots of red pepper—for which a Cerasuolo is a cool-but-hardy complement. Check out the rosati of producers such as Masciarelli, Cataldi Madonna, Illuminati, Spinelli (their brand is called “Terre d’Aligi”), and if you can find it, Valentini, and see for yourself.
The red wines of Abruzzo are a little puzzling: Most of the time, they are as soft and generous as their surroundings are rugged and ungiving. Such is the character of the montepulciano grape, the dominant variety both here and in the neighboring Marche, where it is used in Rosso Cònero.
As with Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC zone, outlined in 1968, covers most of the region. Unlike Trebbiano d’Abruzzo though, efforts have been made to identify superior growing areas through more specific appellations.
Generally speaking, the best montepulcianos come from northern Abruzzo, where the Apennines reach closer to the sea. In the foothills around Teramo, the soils are a poorer mix of ferrous clay and limestone, and the vineyard elevations and microclimates are higher and cooler, when compared to those of the broad, rolling river valleys of the southerly Chieti province. Many of the larger cooperatives are based in the hotter, more fertile southern end of Abruzzo, while most of the smaller private wineries are huddled in the north, along the border with the Marche. Of the half million hectoliters of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo produced each year, two-thirds is produced in the province of Chieti.
In recent years, two new appellations have been created to help distinguish the montepulcianos of the north from those of the south. Producers who source their montepulciano grapes from within a defined area near Teramo can use the subzone designation Colline Teramane (created in 1995 and elevated to DOCG status in 2003), while those within a much smaller area around the commune of Controguerra may opt out of the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC altogether and use the Controguerra DOC instead. At the moment, the only well-known producers to embrace the Controguerra DOC (established in 1996) are Dino Illuminati and Camillo Montori, both of whom continue to make Montepulciano and Trebbiano d’Abruzzo as well.
The existence of these new DOCs represents an effort on the part of the Abruzzesi to make more than just mass-produced airplane wine. “The viticulture of the Abruzzo has changed dramatically,” says Camillo Montori, whose “Fonte Cupa” Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and “Leneo Moro” Controguerra Rosso are two of Abruzzo’s better-regarded reds. “Only in the last four to five years have we really started to concentrate on red wine. Before that we were making a majority of bianchi.”
Beyond that, Montori echoes the quantity-versus-quality refrain heard so often in the Italian south. “On the one hand, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo has long been the most-exported DOC wine from Italy,” he says. “But we really only made ‘house’ wines. We communicated badly, and we remained backward in our methods. I think the first year I ever did a green harvest”—the practice of trimming excess grape bunches in summertime to ensure fuller ripening—“was in 1997. But we’re learning that if you grow and vinify montepulciano correctly, you can make a very big wine.”
Unlike the lightly regarded trebbiano, montepulciano offers quite a bit to the winemaker: It’s deeply colored, with naturally sweet tannins and low acidity, giving the wines that are made from it a fruity softness that makes them accessible when young. “Montepulciano is very interesting,” says Montori. “It is the only wine that is drinkable immediately and also ten years down the line.”
Indeed, montepulciano is like a forgotten little brother among the big boys, taking a back seat to sangiovese and aglianico in central and southern Italy the way dolcetto and barbera take a back seat to nebbiolo in Piedmont. Like the Rosso Cònero of neighboring Marche (which is often, but not always, buttressed with sangiovese), Montepulciano d’Abruzzo can be a wine of great depth and durability. If it lacks anything it’s the tannic structure and the evocative, sometimes ethereal aromas that distinguish the big three of sangiovese, nebbiolo, and aglianico. At their best, montepulciano wines are inky-purple in color and almost syrupy in texture, with scents of black berries and a touch of earthy funk. But they can be one-note wonders—all ripe, juicy fruit and not a lot else.
The montepulciano grape is plump and generous where sangiovese and nebbiolo are leaner and more reticent. Yet, as some Abruzzese producers assert, the youthful exuberance of montepulciano doesn’t fade with age. “The funny thing about montepulciano is that you put it in wood for years and years and it doesn’t change,” says Stefano Illuminati, the current head of the historic Illuminati winery in Controguerra. “That’s both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, you open a well-aged montepulciano and it’s still fresh and full-bodied. On the other hand, you don’t always get the more complex secondary aromas that develop with age. It tends to stay somewhat static.”
With the help of small oak barriques, longer macerations, and more careful selections in the vineyards, the Abruzzesi are looking beyond “house reds” to something burlier, more substantial. In its “Villa Gemma” and “Marina Cvetic” Montepulciano d’Abruzzos, the Masciarelli winery has two deep and satisfying reds to compete with the best of the north, while Illuminati’s “Zanna” and “Lumen” montepulcianos further exemplify how potent the grape’s black-berry flavors can be. There are a number of other producers to seek out when exploring the flavors of montepulciano, among them Valentini and Emidio Pepe, whose earthy, long-aged wines have had spotty distribution in the United States; Farnese, for their top-end “Opis;” and Cataldi Madonna, whose “Toní,” sourced from some of the highest-elevation vineyards in Abruzzo, has not only the full fruitiness of montepulciano but a firm structure born of a longer growing season.
Even the giants like Citra and Casal Thaulero turn out solid montepulcianos. In fact, the screw-top Montepulciano d’Abruzzo on Alitalia is not bad at all. The generosity of the grape makes it difficult to foul up, and we can only imagine what montepulciano will be like after a few more years of experimentation.
Touched by Abruzzo, Lazio, Campania, and Puglia, the tiny chunk of mountains and alluvial plains known as the Molise is the lost world of Italian wine. In the densely wooded heights around Isernia and Campobasso, there are more than a few havens for wine grapes, especially red ones. There is a fair amount of prospecting underway in the mountainous interior—Enzo Ercolino of the Feudi San Gregorio estate in neighboring Campania is said to be planting vineyards near Isernia. But as of yet we’ve got no Molisano mountain wine to sample in the United States.
There are three DOC zones in Molise: Pentro d’Isernia, based around the town of Isernia near the Campanian border; Biferno, based around Campobasso, the regional capital; and Molise or Del Molise, which takes in the entire zone. All three DOCs include bianchi, rosati, and rossi based on trebbiano and montepulciano as in the Abruzzo, but here the influence of Campania is felt a little more strongly. The white falaghina and the red aglianico are both widely planted in Molise, whose distinctive aromas benefit the local wines. But these are wines that are, for the most part, truly local—as in go to someone’s house and drink them locally.
The lone wolf of the Molise is Alessio Di Majo Norante, whose family estate in Campomarino has produced bottled wines since 1968. Di Majo Norante’s wines take their cues from Campania more so than the Abruzzo: He has a greco, fiano, and falangina in his lineup, along with varietal aglianico, sangiovese, and a red blend called “Ramitello,” which combines the soft montepulciano and the sharp aglianico to great effect. Most recently, he introduced a wine called “Don Luigi,” made from 100 percent montepulciano, that stands right alongside the best of the Abruzzo.
But it is more intriguing to think of what might be possible farther inland, where the poorer soils and higher elevations around Isernia and Campobasso lengthen the growing season and add perfume and structure to the wines. Molise’s history of poverty is such that the investment is likely to come from the outside, whether it’s deep-pocketed Campanians such as Ercolino or other entrepreneurs from farther north. In an area full of new winemaking frontiers, this is one of the newest.
PROVINCES: Abruzzo: L’Aquila (AQ), Chieti (CH). Pescara (PE), Teramo (TE). Molise: Campobasso (CB), Isernia (IS)
CAPITALS: Abruzzo: L’Aquila. Molise: Campobasso.
KEY WINE TOWNS: Abruzzo: Controguerrra, Loreto Apruntino. Molise: Campomarino
TOTAL VINEYARD AREA*: Abruzzo: 33,484 hectares, or 82,738 acres. Rank: 7th. Molise: 5,866 hectares, or 14,494 acres (18th)
TOTAL WINE PRODUCTION*: Abruzzo: 3,689,000 hectoliters, or 97,463,380 gallons (6th); Molise: 310,000 hectoliters, or 8,190,200 gallons (18th)
DOC WINE PRODUCED*: Abruzzo: 21.5% (10th); Molise: 12.7% (15th)
SPECIALTY FOODS: Mortadella; salsiccia di fegato (pork liver sausage); dried pasta; saffron; Scamorza (soft, mild, pear-shaped sheep’s-milk cheese); lamb.
*2000 figures. Rankings out of twenty regions total (Trentino–Alto Adige counted as one). Source: Istituto Statistica Mercati Agro-Alimentari (ISMEA), Rome.
TREBBIANO: Found throughout Italy, the local version is thought by some to be the bombino bianco also found in Puglia. Either way, it is known for light, crisp, somewhat neutral wines from the vast Trebbiano d’Abruzzo zone.
MONTEPULCIANO: Not to be confused with the Tuscan town of the same name, this deeply colorful, sweetly tannic variety was thought in the past to be a distant relative of sangiovese. Not anymore. But while it is unique to Abruzzo and a few of the region’s neighbors, no one knows for sure where it originated. No matter: It is showing increasing class in deeply colorful Abruzzo wines.
A special dispensation is given here to the white wines of Edoardo Valentini, whose Trebbiano d’Abruzzo is among the few southern-Italian whites that can (and should) be drunk after significant periods of aging. The vintages that follow are cited by the Abruzzo’s top montepulciano producers as the best recent years for their reds, but they might also be applied to Valentini trebbianos: 1985, ’88, ’90, ’94, ’95, ’97, ’98, ’99, ’00, ’01.
It’s not often that an American tourist makes a trip specifically to the Abruzzo, despite the fact that its regional capital, L’Aquila, is in close proximity to Rome. In fact, L’Aquila is well worth a day trip from the Eternal City. Take a hike in the heights of Campo Imperatore and then return to L’Aquila for an overnight stay: It’s a quiet, isolated city high in the mountains, with lots of hearty food. Check out the Ristorante Ernesto (Piazza Palazzo 22; 0862-210-94) and its sister enoteca across town (Via Cavour 60; 0862-612-74) for a sophisticated take on Abruzzese mountain food and a panorama of the region’s wines. Or, if you’re making your way down the Adriatic coast, stop off in Pescara at the Cantina di Jozz (Via della Caserme 61; 085-69-03-83), one of the most highly regarded restaurants in the region.
Bruno Nicodemi Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, $
Cataldi Madonna Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, $
Edoardo Valentini Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, $$$
Here’s a fairly broad panorama of trebbiano from Abruzzo, starting with a very light, very chalky white that will be best with a good chill, and finishing with a creamy, minerally, full-bodied white that will show its complexity best closer to room temperature. All three wines share cool flavors of pear and apple on the palate, but the scale of each wine is markedly different. The Valentini wine, which won’t be a cinch to get, is best viewed as an abberration: The Trebbiano d’Abruzzo style is better reflected in the clean, light, delicately aromatic wines of Nicodemi and Cataldi Madonna.
Il Feuduccio Montepulciano d’Abruzzo “Ursunia,” $$
Masciarelli Montepulciano d’Abruzzo “Marina Cvetic,” $$
Illuminati Montepulciano d’Abruzzo “Zanna,” $$
Always soft and generous, with a heaping helping of black berry fruit, montepulciano grows into a more brooding, coffee-scented powerhouse when it is grown and vinified with a more exacting eye—as is the case with “Zanna,” a single-vineyard montepulciano of exceptional concentration. All three of these wines might be described as “jammy,” with a juicy sweetness of fruit flavor that makes them immediately pleasurable. But underneath each is a whiff of earthiness, a touch of funk, that places them with hearty Abruzzese foods such as sausages or lamb stew. Under all that generous fruit extract is a solid structure that will allow the wines to age well for years. They’re not as simple and straightforward as they may seem on the surface.
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