Abruzzo wine region

Abruzzo's rugged terrain, 65% of which is mountainous, help to isolate the region from the winemaking influence of the ancient Romans and Etruscans in Tuscany, but the area has had a long history of wine production.

[1][2] Today more than 22 million cases of wine are produced annually in Abruzzo, making it the seventh most productive region in Italy, but only 21.5% of which is made under the denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) designation.

In the completely mountainous province of L'Aquila in the west, some rosé wine known as Cerasuolo from the Montepulciano grape is produced.

[1] The Abruzzo region has the Apennines running along its western border and includes Corno Grande, the highest point on mainland Italy.

However, this does leave the area prone to storm systems originating from the east, which are blocked in their westward progression by the mountains, causing high levels of precipitation to fall on the vineyards, as happened during several rain soaked vintages of the late 1990s.

[3] This is partly because of the high permitted yields of Abruzzo's main DOC region (as much as 100 hectoliters/hectare) as well as the government mandated use of high-producing tendone vine-training systems, installed in the 1970s.

[3][2] Particularly on the fertile hillsides and plain of the southern Chieti province, vineyards warmed by the dry Adriatic breezes during the summer can produce prodigious yields.

[6] Valentini and the new wave of artisanal winemakers often utilize extensive pruning, green harvesting, and low crop yields in the vineyard.

[6] Jancis Robinson notes that some examples of Montepulciano can exhibit a reductive character, likely due to the high levels of phenolics in the grape variety.

These deep cherry pink wines get their color from the highly pigmented Montepulciano grape, that requires only a very brief period (sometimes less than a day) of maceration time prior to pressing.

The wine gained fame in the early 17th century when it was praised for its high quality by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes in his work Novelas ejemplares.