A house with records dating back to 1791 and an official start in 1830, Italo Pietrantonj is as old as it gets for wineries from Abruzzo (literally the oldest). Eight winemaking generations deep in the town of Vittorita, Pietrantonj is rich with family heritage and tradition. Now the winery is run by two sisters, Roberta and Alice, whose great-great-great-grandfather Niccolo was the first certified winemaker in the Abruzzo region. The ‘Black Label’ Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a wine made in the traditional style as homage to the old family winery. After a slow fermentation, the wine is aged in large oak vats for 8 months, which offers sweet spice flavors of anise and dried tobacco in the mouth with a hint of cocoa on the finish, and then bottled. It is a lovely wine full of dried floral and fruit notes complemented by soft leather and earthy aromas offering plenty of full flavors yet staying very pure and fresh so that the fruit is not masked, nor is too heavy in body.

The Ciavolich Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Divus is rich in the glass. Lavender tones and nuances of fresh split elevate its dark core of dried black cherry. Silky and pliant, this washes across the palate with depths of mineal-laced red and black fruits as a primary concentration adds a chewy sensation toward the close.

Ciavolich Passerina / Colline Pescaresi