First, the disclaimer the grape can never escape: Montepulciano has nothing to do with the Tuscan hill town of Montepulciano, whose Vino Nobile is made from Sangiovese. The ambiguity has sold a great deal of wine over the years. The grape itself belongs to the central Adriatic slope, and above all to Abruzzo, where mountains fall toward the sea through vine-covered hills.
It has quietly become Italy's second most planted red. The wine is deep purple, soft-tannined and generous — black fruit and violets over a dark, easy centre — in every register from the cherry-bright cerasuolo rosé of the carafe to the dense, long-lived bottlings of the Teramo hills, which have shown that the everyday grape of the Adriatic can also be a serious one.