The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Refreshing, lively wines that are a good price
Montepulciano wines should be sought for juicy simplicity.
Several little-known red grapes of Italy have achieved some small measure of renown beyond their home territories in the last 15 years, but montepulciano has not been among them.
Unlike aglianico, nerello mascalese and frappato, montepulciano did not burst on to the scene, leaving behind a frenzied Instagram trail of fervent sommeliers and impassioned wine merchants. While those grapes have all deservedly had their moments, montepulciano has largely been ignored.
I don’t argue that it should have been otherwise. The other grapes, at least, have their champions, star winemakers whose successes demonstrated great potential and carved plausible paths for others to follow.
The two most esteemed Montepulciano d’Abruzzo producers, Valentini and Emidio Pepe, are beloved more for their rare and gloriously idiosyncratic wines than for presenting benchmark Abruzzo wines that could be imitated on a wider scale.
Beyond the wines from those two producers, montepulciano is thought to be “generally a workhorse grape,” as Ian D’Agata put it in his excellent “Native Wine Grapes of Italy,” though he also suggested it had “thoroughbred potential.”
Montepulciano is popular enough to be the fourth-mostplanted grape in Italy, after sangiovese; trebbiano, a white found all over Italy; and catarratto, a white found solely in Sicily. Most of the montepulciano is found along the Adriatic Coast, largely in Abruzzo but also in Marche to the north and Puglia to the south.
This is the less-traveled coast of Italy, at least among Americans, who seem far more acquainted with Rome, Naples and the Amalfi Coast than they are with the Adriatic cities of Ancona and Bari. Maybe this unfamiliarity contributes to the lack of general enthusiasm about Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, but in my experience, it has been the style of the wines themselves that limits the enthusiasm.
In the recent era, when wine critics worshipped at the altar
of power and density, many montepulciano producers tried to prove their thoroughbred bona fides with opulent richness and an overreliance on new oak barrels. It was a disastrous equation that resulted in jammy, oaky, tannic wines that for me, at least, were not worth seeking out.
But Montepulciano d’Abruzzo has a longer tradition of juicy, inexpensive wines that are uncomplicated and cheap. Often, these wines were made by the large cooperatives that dominated the region. But in recent years, more small, serious producers have appeared, and the overall quality of the wines has risen.
It is obligatory at some point to distinguish between our subject, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, a wine made of the montepulciano grape, and the very different wine Vino Nobile di Montepulciano made of sangiovese grown in the vicinity of the Tuscan town Montepulciano. Confusing, I know.
To get a better sense of the state of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo today, the wine panel tasted 20 bottles from recent vintages. The tasting included ordinary bottles from 2013, ’14 and ’15, and riservas, which require longer aging before they can be released, from 2011 and ’12.
For the tasting, Florence Fabricant of The New York Times and I were joined by two guests, Marika VidaArnold, who has a wine consultancy, Vida et Fils, and Francesco Grosso, beverage director at Marea on Central Park South.
Perhaps not unexpectedly, the wines in our tasting divided largely into two styles: those that were fresh, fruity and tannic, and others that were overbearing, oaky and tannic. If by no other characteristic, you could sense the difference between the styles in the quality of the tannins.
The montepulciano grape has plenty of astringent tannins in its skins, which give the wines, even the simple ones, a robust structure. The grape tannins also have a clean freshness that seems a natural part of the wine.
But new oak has tannins, too. When the wines have seen too much new oak, you can sense it in the tannins, which have a woody, bitter, drying quality, even if the wine does not have overt flavors from the oak.
“Montepulciano can be easily manipulated,” Francesco said. “Fresh, fruity wines can be turned into international oak bombs,” though he allowed, as a good sommelier would, that this style was not necessarily unattractive to certain palates.
Of the six bottles in our tasting that cost more than $25, only one, the 2011 Contesa riserva at $38, made our top 10, at No. 3. This was a powerful wine, and powerfully tannic, yet it was beautifully balanced, floral, spicy and fruity. Our other favorites topped out at $25.
No. 1 was the superb 2014 Ode from CantinArte, lively, fresh and pure. “This is montepulciano,” Marika said.
It should be said that all of our favorites were relatively simple wines, even the $38 Contesa riserva. They did not offer much in the way of complexity, intrigue or mystery. But they are lively, pure and refreshing, which is important. They are also good values, and they are versatile with meats and tomato-based sauces.
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo may not have much in the way of star power, but you’ll get a good drink of wine.