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Mountainous region in central Italy with a significant coastline on the Adriatic sea to the south of Marches and an important producer of wine. Having overtaken Piedmont, Tuscany, and Latium recently, the Abruzzi is fifth among Italy's regions in terms of production.
Despite the presence of two qualitatively important vine varieties (Montepulciano d'Abruzzo and Trebbiano d'Abruzzo), despite the warm climate, and despite favourable vineyard sites where the hills descend towards the Adriatic and enjoy the benefits of summer heat and solar radiation from the sea, most of the region's production is undistinguished-even if close to a sixth of the Abruzzi's 4 million hl/105 million gal produced each year are now classified as DOC wines. The DOCs themselves are not particularly well conceived, with excessively generous production limits-100 hl/ha (5.7 ton/acre) for Montepulciano d'Abruzzo and over 120 hl/ha for Trebbiano d'Abruzzo-and little attempt to define suitable subzones for the varieties: either Trebbiano or Montepulciano can be planted in any of the region's four provinces. The only limitation is that of altitude, with 500 m/1,640 ft being the maximum for most vineyards, although southern exposures of up to 600 m can be planted. Ripening either Montepulciano or Trebbiano at these heights can be a hazardous business indeed. In spite of this rickety legislative framework, some good wine is produced in the Abruzzi. Fine, often keenly priced Montepulciano has long been produced in such townships as Brecciarola, Citta Sant'Angelo, Controguerra, Loreto Aprutino, Tocco da Casauria, Torano Nuovo, and Vasto. The Montepulciano grape itself, at its best, gives wines of deep colour and substantial extract, firm tannins, and low acidity. It was once much prized as a blending wine in the north of Italy, particularly in Tuscany and Piedmont. The DOC limits of extract, between 18 and 27 g/l, seem to have little logic behind them. The wine frequently has a detectable animal quality to it, which can range from the attractively `sweaty saddle' to the intolerably gamey, but it is not clear whether this element is due to the terroir, to the way in which the wine is fermented, or to how it is aged. Cask ageing was virtually universal before the Second World War but has been less practised recently as some producers, particularly the co-operatives, have aimed at a simple quaffing style, which hardly demonstrates the innate character of the variety, or at wines that could be sold quickly for blending. Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, mentioned as a wine of high quality by Cervantes in his Novelas ejemplares, is not made from Trebbiano at all but rather from the Bombino (see Bombino Bianco), a variety widely employed in Apulia. Better Trebbiano d'Abruzzo is a pleasurable, if not memorable, wine, but in the hands of Edoardo Valentini, who combines low yields with a severe selection in the cellar, and ferments and ages his wine entirely in wood, it is one of Italy's outstanding, and certainly its longest-lived, dry white wines. Valentini's Trebbiano d'Abruzzo is so startlingly different from that of his peers that it is difficult to decide whether it is a quirk of fate or the hand of genius that has revealed the potential of an otherwise quite obscure grape variety. Bibliography - Anderson, B., The Wine Atlas of Italy (London and New York, 1990).
- Gleave, D., The Wines of Italy (London and New York, 1989).
References altitude Bombino Bianco co-operatives DOC extract Montepulciano terroir Trebbiano yield
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