2002 Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Abruzzo, Italy

ABOUT THIS WINE

After hand-harvesting, the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo grapes are hand destemmed on a net on top of a wooden vat, two people will push the grapes back and forth until the berries will fall down and the stems will remain on the net unbroken, this way only the elegant and juicy tannins of the skin will go into the must but not the bitter ones from the stems. The berries remain almost intact, important to keep the yeasts which are on the skins and really precious for our spontaneous fermentations. Before release, the Montepulciano bottles that are 20 or more years old are decanted by hand into new bottles and labeled. An extensive stock of older vintages is kept at the cellar. The year of decantation is now listed on a strip around the neck of the bottle. The Montepulciano bears little relation to most other wines of this appellation; they are big, bold, and filled with the intense flavors of dried black cherries, licorice and wild herbs.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

Emidio Pepe founded his winery in 1964, after working alongside his father and his grandfather which already back in 1889 where making wine at Casa Pepe. Before anyone else, he strongly believed in the great ageing potential of Trebbiano and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and he dedicated all his energies to those two indigenous grape varietals, proving their incredible potential and showing it to the entire world. 

"Ours is a family run business and all that really counts is in our history, deeply rooted in our land and it is handed down from generation to generation. Still farmers deep inside: while everything changes, grows, evolves with time, our way of taking on the work and the life has remained the same. Today, under the proud gaze of Emidio and Rosa, the main guarantors of this tradition are Sofia and Daniela, together with the young granddaughters Chiara and Elisa. Sofia is the guardian of the oenological knowledge, she follows all the aspects related to the production and the quality, while Daniela follows in first person the administration and financial aspects of the winery. Chiara, Daniela’s daughter, follows the export markets and Elisa, who has just turned eighteen, is starting to support and help the winery world."-From the winery.

Torano Nuovo is in the center of an uncontaminated Nature still provided of its times, able to generate unforgettable fruits through its soils and still capable of holding the idea of labor as a gift and able to transform the passion for the land in immutable love. The climate balances the soft and sapid influence of the sea together with the cold streams from the Gran Sasso Mountain, giving birth to a perfect condition that allows a slow and progressive ripening of the flavours and creating an ideal balance between sugars and acidity. The clay and limestone soil hosts the roots, which go down for several meters, the soil also provides and feeds them with a specific minerality that allows the wine to have complexity and longevity. A combination of soil and climate factors: the location of the vineyards exposed to a large solar arc, the different temperature range between day and night that helps the filling sugars in the grapes and the constant wind prevents bacteria and diseases to develop – all this defines Torano Nuovo, a town from incredible vine vocation.