Sagrantino

Grown almost nowhere but the hills around Montefalco in Umbria, Sagrantino carries one of the highest tannin loads of any grape on earth — a near-black, brooding red that needs years to unwind. Its history is sacramental: long made in a sweet, dried-grape passito for the altar, it was only turned into a dry table wine in the late twentieth century.

That dry Montefalco Sagrantino is a monument — dense, savoury, tarry and built for decades — and its revival rescued a grape that had dwindled to a few hectares. Uncompromising and utterly local, it is one of Italy's great rediscovered reds.