1986 Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

Community Tasting Notes (2) Avg Score: 94.5 points

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View forceberry's profile
  • Report Issue

  3/13/2023 - forceberry wrote: 96 Points

  100% Montepulciano from organically farmed vineyards, all fruit fully destemmed. Fermented spontaneously and aged for two years in concrete tanks. Bottled unfined and unfiltered. 13% alcohol.
  
  Luminous, evolved and moderately translucent brick-red color. The exquisite nose feels open and wonderfully fragrant with enormously attractive aromas of perfumed floral tones and exotic spices, some apple jam, a little bit of ripe Bing cherry, light brambly notes of black raspberries, a hint of dried figs and a touch of arctic bramble. There's really a lot of stuff going on here. The wine is silky, open and textural on the palate with a rather full body and very intense flavors of black raspberries and arctic brambles, some crunchy notes of tart cranberries and lingonberries, a little bit of perfumed floral character, light gravelly mineral tones, a hint of exotic spices, a ferrous touch of blood and a faint, sweet nuance of apple jam. The medium tannins are pretty mellow and gently grippy, whereas the high acidity lends great sense of structure to the wine while giving a good boost to the flavor intensity. The finish is long, spicy and very gently grippy with a complex, harmonious aftertaste of tart lingonberries and cranberries, some exotic spices, a little bit of sour cherry bitterness, light floral nuances of rose petals and violets, brambly hints of black raspberries and arctic bramble and a meaty touch of roasted game.
  
  This was simply a fantastic vintage of Pepe's Montepulciano and hands down my favorite of the ten vintages (between 1975 and 2014) we tasted. Not only was the wine still fully alive with very vibrant and focused fruit flavors, but the wine also showed fantastic intensity of flavors and some very fragrant and nuanced qualities no other wine had. The harmony here was simply on another level. It's quite hard to assess whether the wine was on its plateau of maturity or if there is still some potential for future development, but most likely this wine will continue to keep for years more - maybe even decades! I wouldn't be surprised if this wine just continued to evolve and improve with additional aging. Truly an extraordinary wine - probably the best Montepulciano I've ever tasted!

  1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View premiercru1973's profile
  • Report Issue

  8/16/2018 - premiercru1973 Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Very funky at the start. After 1 hour of decanting it opens with the most elegant burgundy like notes and elegance. A stunner!

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

Professional reviews have copyrights and you can view them here for your personal use only as private content. To view pro reviews you must either subscribe to a pre-integrated publication or manually enter reviews below. Learn more.