The Merry Drinker

Italians hate simplicity. They abhor it as vampires do garlic. Consider the case of Montepulciano, one of Italy’s more interesting grape varietals. It shares its name with a village in Tuscany which makes one of the country’s great wines, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Any reasonable person might suppose that Vino Nobile was made from the Montepulciano grape. They would be wrong. The Noble Wine of Montepulciano is actually made from Sangiovese. It may contain lesser amounts of Canaiolo, Mammolo and Trebbiano. Occasionally it even contains some Gamay. But the one grape you will never find in it is Montepulciano.

Indeed, the Montepulciano grape is scarcely known in Tuscany. Its real home is Abruzzo, on the Adriatic. This province is less fashionable than Tuscany, though no less beautiful and with as much to offer. The same is true of its wines.  The best of these is Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, a big, fleshy red that really is made from the Montepulciano grape.

This fine example is from the firm of Antonio ed Elio Monti. Their website declares that “perfect wine has always been an indestructible and irremissible family tradition,” which is heartening to know. Unfortunately, the firm also rejoices in the national tradition of needless confusion - equally indestructible and every bit as irremissible.

This wine does not appear on the Monti website. At any rate, its label is not the same as any of the four Montepulciano-based reds listed there. Perhaps they are only a sample of Monti’s wines. Or perhaps one of the four has been renamed for export. I do not think my wine was Pignotto (“an amalgam of the fruits of the Earth and of Nature, and of the hand of Man and his history-old experience”) or Voluptas (“a come-hither wine, enthralling, uninhibited”) or Controguerra Rosso (“a magisterial cuvée of harmony and boldness that places this nectar among the wines never to be forgotten”). The label is most like that of Senior (“a noble, closely-guarded inheritance that is generously yielded to the connoisseur and to those who can appreciate the jewels in life’s crown”). But really, one can only guess.

All I can say with confidence is that this is a soft, dense wine, with a sweetly floral nose. Its taste suggests mushrooms and earth, its finish, oatmeal. I would not call it unforgettable, enthralling or uninhibited, but I do think it is very good value at around $18 in the US, £9 in the UK.