Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2017

94 pts Wine Advocate: 

This is one of the cornerstone producers of the Abruzzo, a winery that follows strict tradition but that also appeals to every new generation of wine drinker that encounters a bottle. The wines of Emidio Pepe are in a word, timeless. The 2017 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo flaunts its pedigree with elegant aromas of black fruit, smoke, tar and powdery licorice. Montepulciano d'Abruzzo fares well in the hot vintages such as 2017 thanks to the cool mountain climates of the region, and not only do you get deep textural richness here, the acidity is beautifully preserved and fresh as well. The tannins are firm and polished, all followed by delicate little accents of dried herb and crushed stone.

Emidio Pepe 是個 cult producer ，是個奇人，他信奉的是大自然。他的酒不在木桶陳年，不經過 malolactic fermentation ，不用 filtering ，經過兩年在玻璃壁的水泥缸內陳年後，酒先入瓶存放，在上市前再用人手 double decant 到新的瓶子裏。詳情請看他們的網站﹕http://www.emidiopepe.com/

上市前最後一道工序

Bastianich and Lynch 的 Vino Italiano 是這樣介紹 Emidio Pepe 的﹕ 

When these wines are on, they are like good older Burgundies, though there is considerable bottle-to-bottle variation.  The Pepe family remains committed to organic farming, hand-picking and foot-crushing grapes, minimal-intervention vinification, and long bottle aging.  They regularly decant and rebottle wines, the effect being a sort of controlled oxidation, but in tasting the wines you’ll often find the oxidative balsamic notes overpowering the rosy, spicy fruit.  Then again, maybe those just seem like flaws because no other wines taste quite like these.  There's a big cult following who appear to “get” the Pepe style, so maybe it is a question of more practice.