InAlto. Rosso

Grape: Montepulciano

Damson and black cherry, flint and lemon balm. A fair grip of tannin, ripe and sweet in character, with damson, orange pith, ripe herb and eucalyptus, faint toffee and espresso on the finish.

Link to InAlto producer page

Ofena has a long history cultivating Montepulciano, the village sits over a high plain, known as ‘Forno (oven) d’Abruzzo’, which was once carpeted by vines. The terroir is extraordinary, high altitude with dramatic swings between day and night temperatures, fossil rich, chalky clays on maritime limestone, all hemmed in by mountains.
The vines are between 30 and 50 years old, presently under conversion to organic protocols. The harvest was at the end of October, the bunches are sorted, de-stemmed and then crushed. Fermentation is in temperature-controlled (28°C) steel tanks, the wine remained on the skins for 26 days with regular pumping over. The wine is then moved into tonneaux (3rd use, 500 litre French oak) where it goes through malolactic conversion and matures for 14 months before the final assemblage and bottling without filtration.