A Review of a Montepulciano D'Abruzzi

For this Wednesday's entry I thought I'd continue the trend of sharing my experiences with the everyday wines. This week I opened a 2004 Antonio & Elio Monti Montepulciano D'Abruzzi and I must say I think I found another winner that falls into the under $10.00 category. I picked up this bottle at Bottle King for $8.98. This wine is obviously from Italy, the Abruzzi region in the South East portion of the peninsula. It is made entirely from the Montepulciano grape, which is a major variety in southern Italy. Using our customary 4 point scale, I would rank this bunch of grapes at a 3.5. Let me explain my rationale. Lets begin with color, this is a deep reddish brown wine with medium body. By no means a big heavy red that might be confused with the Barolos or Brunellos. The wine has decent legs upon swirling. The next order of business is the odor or in the words of Gary the "sniffy sniff". I observed a strong odor of leather and earth, with a slight hint of cherry. Not very exciting or interesting, but if you can get past this little disappointment, I think you will be pleasantly surprised. The tasting experience began with a smooth dryness, with hints of mocha or dark chocolate. There is some bitterness on the mid pallet, but it fades quickly. Tannins are medium to low. Virtually no fruit taste or sugar for that matter. To me, a lover of the dry earthy wines of Italy, this is perfect. The kicker is the overall smoothness of the wine, which is very high on my enjoyment scale. Finally, in terms of longevity, it is also a winner, I opened the bottle on Sunday and the wine held together Monday and Tuesday being stored at room temperature after being hand vacuumed pumped. I were to take a guess, I would say JP would be won over by the smoothness. Hard to say how the rest of the gang will fall, but at $9.00 “Bones” (Gary again) a bottle, why not try it this weekend. Anyway, that's my thought for the day.