2003 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is “the king” of the Abruzzo varietals. Emidio Pepe describes it as the wine of the future for its immediate beauty and his aging potential. Since the first harvest we have never changed the winemaking method, still today no machines are used, we thought this is a way to repeat tradition but mainly to guarantee constant quality and coherence through the vintages. Today, three generation after Emidio’s first harvest, we still do everything exactly as he started.Concrete...Read More...

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is “the king” of the Abruzzo varietals. Emidio Pepe describes it as the wine of the future for its immediate beauty and his aging potential. 

Since the first harvest we have never changed the winemaking method, still today no machines are used, we thought this is a way to repeat tradition but mainly to guarantee constant quality and coherence through the vintages. Today, three generation after Emidio’s first harvest, we still do everything exactly as he started.

Concrete represents one of the cornerstones of our production’s philosophy. Concrete tanks are the home of the wine, its natural habitat, a neutral and hospitable place that leaves the wine free to express without external influences. Its capacity of being inert, neutral and tempered allows it to accompany the wines slowly and gently.

The concrete tanks Emidio started with in 1964 are still in use today, also those tanks’ capability of never getting old marries the guiding principles of our vinification.

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo grapes are hand destemmed on a net on top of a wooden vat, two people will push the grapes back and forth until the berries will fall down and the stems will remain on the net unbroken, this way only the elegant and juicy tannins of the skin will go into the must but not the bitter ones from the stems. The berries remain almost intact, important to keep the yeasts which are on the skins and really precious for our spontaneous fermentations.

Since the beginning we leave the wine to age in bottle without any filtration, we like to keep the wine alive and powerful and let it face the long journey with as much energies at possible, those that would have been taken away by any kind of filtration. This way, with time, the wine will sediment at the bottom of the bottle what it doesn’t need anymore. That sediment will stay into the bottle until we decide to release the vintage. Before we release then any bottle that has more than 20 years of age, will be re-opened and hand decanted, one by one, to remove the sediments and to check the quality of each bottle. While loosing some liquid in this process, the new bottle is quickly topped up with a second bottle of the same vintage and corked. On the cork we print the year of the decantation, so the client knows when this process of quality control has happened. - Emidio Pepe. 

 

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