|
 In the last ten years Abruzzo wine has become very successful on international markets as well as at the eyes of the specialized press, in guides and in major worldwide wine shows. It is a success story attributable to various factors, not least of all the decision to give valorization to the territory and its most significant autochthonous vines: Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is the fourth cultivated vine in Italy and occupies around 30 thousand hectares. In the region, half the vineyard territory is cultivated with this vine describing suggestive and very beautiful landscapes. Hung to the slopes of the Gran Sasso d'Italia and of the Majella mountains, symbols of the National Park of Abruzzo, they go down reaching the coasts of the Adriatic Sea. The difference of climate and soils produces different grapes that express a variety of different wines for composition, color and flavour.
Montepulciano is a fruity wine with naturally soft tannins. Generally its color is deep ruby that reveals itself with violet tones and opens an intense nose that registers clear mineral notes of graphite and dark fruit, blackberry in primis, and draws on the deep end slightly balsamic nuances. The taste is always very soft and enveloping thanks to the sweetness of the tannins. This wine is palatable and tasting it you can discover hints of plums, blackberries, raspberries and marasche.
Its lowest gradation is of 11,5° and it must be aged at least five months. When it reaches the two years of maturity, with a minimum alcoholic gradation of 12°, it can be labeled "reserve." It is defined as a noble wine of great fineness and is suggested to be drunk with first and second courses of meat, red meats, roasted lamb, game meats, cured pork meats and seasoned cheeses.
 The success that this wine is meeting abroad is mainly due to its excellent basic characteristics but also to the constant research for quality that many vine farms in Abruzzo, like ours, have undertaken in these last twenty years.
In the past winegrowers sold almost all Montepulciano grapes to other Italian regions or abroad as excellent and refined cutting wine. The latest success has done justice to this wine and labeled it as one of the oenological pearl of the Italian wine industry.
Without any doubt Montepulciano has been present in Abruzzo for these last two millennia. There are various historical written evidences like those by Publio Ovidio Nasone and Catone. Scientific analysis about the soils and vines shows an incontrovertible origin from Abruzzo of this vine. So an ancient wine, almost unknown in these last few years to general public but so rich of aromas and flavors to discover that is gaining the right place in the national and international market thanks to its healthy properties too.
In fact, this red wine contains high levels of anti-oxidants and polyphenols which help to prevent arterial damage by reducing the likelihood of fatty lesions and blood clots forming in blood vessels and impairing the blood supply to essential organs, such as the heart. The latest evidence suggests that polyphenols also reduce the production of a substance called endothelin 1 which makes blood vessels constrict. By reducing levels of endothelin 1, red wine may be relaxing key arteries to the heart and helping to prevent them from becoming blocked.
|
