Please Note: This wine is currently Sold Out
VARIETAL/VINEYARD: We began grafting vines over to Montepulciano in 2005 after George and Linda visited Italy’s Le Marche Region. Our Montepulciano comes from three rows, or .27 acres, planted on our creek-side block. This vineyard is planted to 4″ X 6″ spacing on 101-14 rootstock. Montepulciano, like many of the Italian reds, is quite vigorous, even when it is grown on our sandy, well-drained soil. As a result, we passed through the vineyard several times during the growing season to reduce the yield to less than 7 pounds per vine.
VINTAGE/HARVEST: Montepulciano is a late ripening grape here in Dry Creek. Consequently in 2009, we harvested fruit in early October and were not able to harvest our Montepulciano before the rain-storm of mid-October. Fortunately, Montepulciano grapes have thick skins, which enabled us to harvest on October 21, generally free of bunch rot. When grown in its native region of Abruzzo, Montepulciano can be full bodied, fruity, and tannic. We found the same to be true here. Like many Italian varieties Montepulciano can be a vigorous vine; to achieve a higher level of grape growing we routinely drop about 30% of the crop.
VINIFICATION: Our Montepulciano was fermented in two small open top tanks. It was de-stemmed, lightly crushed, and kept below 60 degrees for several days prior to fermentation beginning spontaneously with indigenous yeast. We routinely stir lees during the initial stage of barrel aging for complexity and texture. We aged this wine in French oak barrels, 30% new, for 17 months. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered.
STYLE: The 2009 is perhaps our softest Montepulciano to date. Still, this wine still shows the bright acidity we’ve come to expect (and appreciate) from Italian red grape varieties grown here in Dry Creek. It shows a grapey character early, which develops into chocolate and cassis as it ages. This medium-bodied Montepulciano is already drinking well and should continue to do so for about 2 to 3 years. As an unfiltered wine, this 2009 Montepulciano does throw some sediment. I recommend standing it up for a few hours prior to opening. Bring on the pasta and meat sauce.
Harvested: 10/ 21, 10/22/09
Blend: 100% Montepulciano
Total acidity: 0.54g/100ml
Alcohol: 13.2%
pH: 3.75
Bottled: 1/12/11
Aging: 14 months in French Oak, 30% new
Cases Produced: 250
I was in Napa in March and Mannie from freitz vineyard (probably not spelling it correctly) recommended your Montepulciano wine .I would like to purchase on line
Hi Charlene, thanks for your interest. At this point the production levels of 100% Montepucliano are very small so we do not have it in stock for much of the year. The ’09 vintage will be released later this summer. Feel free to sign up for our newsletter to be notified when it is released.
Alex
Hi Alex:
I wanted to check if your Montepucliano had been released yet.
Thank you,
Scott
Thanks for asking Scott, the 2009 Montepulciano will be released in October. It will be detailed in our next newsletter.
I just had a bottle of the 2009 with pasta the other night. Really fantastic wine, it was exactly what I hoping it would be. I love the velvet texture of this unfiltered wine.
We just enjoyed a bottle of Montepulciano that we’ve been storing for about a year. I could almost swear that it said it was a 2009 vintage, but in reading the comments you say the 2009 was to be released in October 2012. What vintage did I have?
Regardless, the wine was superb, so smooth – we drank it with meat loaf made of Italian Sausage — what a great combination!
We are happy that we can now purchase Unti wines at our nearby “Whole Foods Store. Thank you for bringing it to our neighborhood.
Gary Hill