Tiberio Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2023

The Land

Most Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is grown on the warm coastal plain and sold as an inexpensive pizza red. Tiberio farms inland, at Cugnoli in the hills of Pescara province, where the estate sits between two mountain ranges and the cooler air stretches the growing season into October. The Montepulciano for this bottling comes from 15 hectares at 350 meters on clay-calcareous soil, trained on the traditional pergola abruzzese at 2,500 vines per hectare. Yields are held to 45 hectoliters per hectare. That combination of altitude, limestone and a long, cool finish to the season is why this Montepulciano from Abruzzo reads as bright and perfumed rather than heavy and jammy.

The Wine

Tiberio Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2023 is 100% Montepulciano from massal-selection vines, fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel, put through malolactic in steel, and aged in tank before bottling unfined and unfiltered. No oak touches it, so the fruit and the fine tannin carry the wine on their own. Expect blackcurrant, blueberry and sour cherry, then violet and pink peppercorn, a fresh attack with silky tannin, and a finish of red cherry and redcurrant. The 2023 season was one of the hardest in memory in Abruzzo: roughly three months of spring rain set off a severe downy mildew outbreak, and many estates, especially near the coast, lost 70 to 80 percent of their crop before a hot, dry summer. Windy, well-drained interior hills like Cugnoli took less damage, and the reds of the year are linear, perfumed and built for drinking young.

The People

The quiet radical idea at Tiberio is genetic. When Riccardo Tiberio bought the property in 2000, he found old local vines on it, including a handful of Pecorino plants that were later propagated. His children never replaced that inheritance with nursery clones. Every new vine is grown by massal selection from the estate's own old plants, on the reasoning that vines adapted to Cugnoli over decades will handle its weather better than anything bought in. Antonio Tiberio, trained in viticulture and enology, runs the vineyards. His sister Cristiana, a chemistry graduate who trained in Champagne, Burgundy and the Mosel, took charge of all winemaking in 2011. She settled on steel after trying other vessels, arguing that ripe grapes need no oak to hide behind.

Food Pairing

This is a red for the middle of the table. Pork sausages braised with fennel, white beans and rosemary work because the wine's acidity cuts the fat while the peppery edge meets the fennel. Arrosticini, the thin lamb skewers of Abruzzo grilled over charcoal and salted at the last second, are the regional answer, and the silky tannin never fights the smoke. Rigatoni with a slow ragù of pork and beef matches its dark fruit, and an eggplant parmigiana with plenty of basil leans on its freshness. Give it fifteen minutes in the fridge before pouring. It is the bottle to keep on hand for the nights you cook something simple and want it to taste like Italy.