Abruzzo

Abruzzo's wine future is still ahead of it. This mountainous region, whose climate is influenced on one side by the almost 3,000-meter-high Gran Sasso mountain range and on the other side by the Adriatic Sea, is one of the cleanest and least populated areas in Italy. Similar to neighboring Umbria, wine production here was long concentrated mainly on large volumes of rustic wines by cooperatives, without anyone addressing the specifics and potential of individual areas. Most of the vineyards were planted with local varieties Trebbiano Abruzzese and Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, which can basically be grown anywhere in Abruzzo. Fortunately, in recent years, smaller winemakers have started to focus not on quantity, but on the quality of their production, and the first interesting structured wines like Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, which is currently the only DOCG (Colline Teramare) appellation in all of Abruzzo, are emerging. Its rosé variant Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo, with its typical cherry color, aroma, and structure, is also gaining success.