Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC is the Abruzzo wine flagship and one of the most grown grapes in Italy. It comes  originally from Greece  and was mentioned for the first time by the greek
writer Polibio (206 a.c.- 124 a.c.) who praised it as a good therapy for men to recover from
injuries. There are few other writers that, during the Roman Empire, referred to this wine but
the first facts about it date back to the Renaissance time in Tuscany.

In the XVI century, the Medici family acquired some of the Piccolomini family’s estate in
Abruzzo and planted the first vines that, later, resulted to be Montepulciano. The Medici
family, along with the grapes, has brought in Abruzzo the first viticulture techniques and it
marked the beginning of the Tuscan contamination lasted until the XVIII century.

In the XVIII century, the planting of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo grew consistently in
particular in the “Valle Peligna” as is written in the script of Michele Troia, a history writer
of that period. Unfortunately the advent of Phyllossera ,at the end of the XIX century,
delayed the spread of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo which definitely developed during the XX
century. In fact the planting of this variety doubled in size from 12.000 hectares in 1929 to
25.000 in 1970.

In 1968 was established the appellation “Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC” that requires at
least 85% of the main grape in the wine and a minimum abv of 12%. Moreover, the vineyards
have to be placed not more than 500 meters above the sea level and the production is allowed
only in the districts of Chieti, L’Aquila, Pescara and Teramo. To be labelled as “Riserva” the
wine has to age at least 2 years which 9 months must be in oak.