At Emidio Pepe, a bottle of Montepulciano can spend twenty years in the cellar and still get hand-decanted into a fresh bottle before it ships. That kind of patience has made this small Abruzzo estate one of Italy's most revered names in natural wine.
Backstory
Emidio Pepe took over the family estate in 1964 and built its reputation for uncompromising, age-worthy wines. Since 1997 the winery has been led by his daughters, the sisters Daniela and Sofia, representing the fourth generation. Granddaughter Chiara De Iulis Pepe has joined as the fifth, while her sister Elisa runs the estate's agriturismo.
The Region
The winery sits in Torano Nuovo, in the northern province of Teramo in Abruzzo, between the Gran Sasso mountains and the Adriatic. The vineyards grow on soils where the top 40 centimeters is clay over solid limestone, a combination that drives the wines' tension and longevity.
Vineyards & Farming
Farming is biodynamic, artisanal, and deeply hands-on. Two single-vineyard parcels anchor the estate: Casa Pepe, planted in 1974 and south-facing, and Branella, planted in 1966 and southeast-facing. The principal grapes are Trebbiano d'Abruzzo and Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, with Pecorino also grown.
Winemaking
Grapes are hand-harvested and famously hand-destemmed, berry by berry. Fermentation runs on spontaneous yeasts, and the wines age 18 to 24 months in glass-lined cement tanks with no oak whatsoever. Everything is bottled unfined and unfiltered. Aged Montepulciano bottlings, often more than 20 years old, are hand-decanted into new bottles before release.
The Wines
The estate is best known for its Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, a white capable of decades of evolution, and its single-vineyard Montepulciano d'Abruzzo from Casa Pepe and Branella. These are wines built to outlive the people who open them.
