Wine Openers

Montepulciano as seen from the bell tower in Piazza Grande.

Remember that oh-so-Tuscan hilltop village featured in the 2004 movie “Under the Tuscan Sun”? Then you’ve seen Montepulciano, Italy.

The village and town date from the Etruscan Period (4th-3rd centuries B.C.) and underwent several rounds of domination until the Florentines finally claimed it in 1511. In 1561, the town became autonomous and today it’s perhaps best known for its wine, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.

In 1685, poet Francesco Redi named it “the king of all wines” and in 1980 this was among the first Italian wines to receive the strict Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG).

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano sometimes is confused with Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, although the latter comes from the province of Abruzzo and is made from the Montepulciano grape (I told you it can be confusing).

Vino Nobile, whose history goes back at least until 789, comes from Tuscany and is by rule at least 70 percent the local Sangiovese clone Prugnolo Gentile.

As Alfonso Cevola recently noted in his blog “On the Wine Trail in Italy,” it’s all part of the “distinct charm of the Italian state of mind to give unlike wines similar names.” And not just wines.

“Anyone who has driven in Italy,” Cevola writes, “and tried to find a town starting with the name of Colle, Castello, Rocca or Monte will recognize the dilemma. But, after all, it’s Italy and people have been finding their way around, eventually, to the town or the Café or the vineyard. Or not.”

Let’s go back to one of the first encompassing Italian wine books most of us read: Italian Wine for Dummies by Mary Ewing-Mulligan and Ed McCarthy. I’ll borrow this quote that Cevola pulls from the book:“The confusion is understandable, but these two wines are definitely different wines made from different grape varieties. Vino Nobile is a dry red wine made primarily from the Prugnolo Gentile variety (a type of Sangiovese) around the town of Montepulciano in southeastern Tuscany. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is also a dry red wine, but made mainly from the Montepulciano variety, which grows in the region of Abruzzo on the Adriatic coast, southeast of Tuscany. The Montepulciano variety is believed to be native to the Abruzzo region, and it has no connection to Sangiovese or to the town of Montepulciano in Tuscany.”

Which is as clear as it can get, at least when you talk about Italian wines and grape varieties.