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Valentini
Varietal: Montepulciano
Montepulciano varietal grapes have been popular in Italy and elsewhere in the world for a very long time, and continue to be grown in vast quantities in Italy to this day. Indeed, they are second most commonly cultivated red wine grape varietal in their native Italy, and grow everywhere in the country except for in the north, where the climate is a little too cold for them to ripen fully. Recent decades have seen them planted in several New World countries, where they are equally popular with vintners looking for a varietal which produces high yields of a reliable quality. The grapes are renowned for producing quite light bodied wines, as the fruit has a low acid and tannin level. However, there are plenty of pigments within the grape skins, meaning that Montepulciano is a grape varietal which produces beautifully deep colored wines.
Region: Abruzzo
The ancient region of Abruzzo in central Italy has been an important center of wine production for millennia, with most archaeologists agreeing that the first vines cultivated in the excellent soils of the region were probably planted sometime in the sixth century BCE. Indeed, legend has it that Hannibal was given Abruzzo wine after he brought his elephants over the Alps, whilst on his way to sack Rome. As with many historic wine regions of Italy, Abruzzo's reputation was heavily tarnished in the mid 20th century, and it became known as a region more concerned with bulk and quantity than quality. Today, this couldn't be further from the truth, and wineries in Abruzzo are once more using their traditional techniques to make wonderful, characterful wines from their native grape varietals, and finding new successes and new fans all the time.
Country: Italy
Italy is recognised as being one of the finest wine producing countries in the world, and it isn't difficult to see why. With a vast amount of land across the country used primarily for vineyard cultivation and wine production, each region of Italy manages to produce a wide range of excellent quality wines, each representative of the region it is produced in. Any lover of Italian wines will be able to tell you of the variety the country produces, from the deliciously astringent and alpine-fresh wines of the northern borders, to the deliciously jammy and fruit-forward wines of the south and the Italian islands. Regions such as Barolo are frequently compared with Bordeaux and Burgundy in France, as their oak aged red wines have all the complexity and earthy, spicy excellence of some of the finest wines in the world, and the sparkling wines of Asti and elsewhere in Italy can easily challenge and often exceed the high standards put forward by Champagne. Thanks to excellent terrain and climatic conditions, Italy has long since proven itself a major player in the world of wines, and long may this dedication to quality and excellence continue.