Torre dei Beati Montepulciano d’Abruzzo

The art, the cities, the food (OMG, the food) and last but by all means not least, the wine!!! Yes of course we all have had a few Italian wines that weren’t up to scratch, but generally they are hard to find unless you don’t read the labels or you are really at a loss with them. As per anything Italians do, their culture and often their wine are connected to their history and the Italians take great pride in this (rightfully so). Torre dei beati is a pure example of that, as it translates as “Tower of the Blessed”, and takes its lead from a section of the large 14th century fresco adorning the church of Santa Maria in Piano at the base of the town’s hillside. The fresco features an interpretation of the Judgement Day, where a tower is the final goal for souls who have reached the after-life. And so it came to pass that the team at Torre dei Beati imagined this mythical tower to symbolise all that they aim to achieve in their efforts to create a wine typical of its locale and honestly made: though the journey may be tough and at first seemingly impossible, the end more than justified the means. The winery is owned and run by husband-and-wife team Adrianna Galasso and Fausto Albanesi. Fausto’s father-in-law, Rocco, planted the first Torre dei Beati vineyard in 1972 and handed over control in 1999 to the young couple who quickly converted the estate to organic farming in 2000, long before it became the hip thing to do. Although you can find in every Irish Restaurant Montepulciano(Grape) d’Abruzzo(The Region), most of these wines are somewhat of inferior quality due to the majority of the local winemakers focusing on quantity rather than quality. Here is quite opposite, with only the best bunches are hand-picked from the Loreto Aprutino vineyard to make this elegant Montepulciano. The wine is aged for 12 months, half in 3000l Slovenian oak casks, half in second-use French oak barriques. Showing complex fruit, lightly touched by spicy oak. Full bodied yet smooth; the finely balanced tannins work well with natural minerality and measured acidity for a lingering finish.