2002 Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Extremely limited availability! Emidio Pepe has a cult following for his non-conventional winemaking techniques that have made the estate and their wines legendary. Better yet – we’ve aged the wine for you. Experts say this wine will peak from 2018-2030, aka now!
Organic farming practices, hand-harvested, native yeast fermentation, no fining/filtering, and no added sulfites.
- Tasting Notes ripe red cherry, botanical herbs, wet earth, and mushrooms
- Variety Montepulciano
- Region Italy, Abruzzo
- Volume 750mL
- Alcohol Volume 13.5%
- Table Talk Prior to release, bottles are opened and decanted one by one by Rosa Pepe, the family matriarch, into new bottles after which they are re-corked, labeled by hand and shipped. There is no fining, filtration, or SO2 added during the second bottling.
$300.00
Only 4 left in stock
Pairs with
- Benchmark producer of Montepulciano and Trebbiano d’Abruzzo
- Pioneer of Biodynamic winemaking in Italy
- No oak used at all in the winemaking process – fermentations in cement and then aged in bottle
- Red grapes are crushed by hand, white grapes are crushed by foot
- These are some of the most legendary, age-worthy wines from Italy
Emidio Pepe is a singular producer creating amazingly complex age-worthy reds and whites in a region of mass produced, overly engineered versions of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Though the family has been producing wines here since the end of the 19th Century, the winemaking process has remained philosophically unchanged since Emidio Pepe took over the estate in 1964. The business and wine production has been in the hands of the fourth generation of the Pepe family with sisters, Daniela and Sofia, since 1997. And more recently, the dynamic Chiara de Iulis Pepe has joined the estate as the fifth generation!
The Pepe vineyards are located in the northern province of Teramo, with soils rich in clay and limestone. In fact the top 40 centimeters of the soils is clay but underneath it is solid limestone. The Trebbiano is foot trodden in wooden tubs for two reasons: in order to avoid contact between the iron presses and the acids of the fruit and also for the textural complexity resulting in the subtle maceration that happens when the trodden skins release their characteristics in to the juice. The resulting white wines are slightly golden hued, well balanced and complex, with hints of nuts, hay, and yellow fruits. The Montepulciano bears little relation to most other wines of this appellation; they are big, bold, and filled with the intense flavors of dried black cherries, licorice and wild herbs.
The winemaking regime at Pepe follows an uber-natural and artisinal path. Grapes are grown biodynamically, hand-harvested, hand-destemmed, fermented with spontaneous yeast and aged 18-24 months in glass-lined cement tanks. The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered and are aged in their cellar in bottles for continued development. Before release, the Montepulciano bottles that are 10 or more years old are decanted by hand into new bottles and labeled. An extensive stock of older vintages is kept at the cellar.
In most vintages there are two Montepulciano wines made at the winery. One made from young vines which is released only in Italy after a few years of aging, and one that is laid down in the cellar for, normally, at least five years. The bottlings from young vines are never exported outside of Italy. The winery doesn’t feel the young vine wines have the body or complexity to make the voyage overseas. The bottlings from the old vine selection is released in Europe a few years earlier than they are released in the United States. For example, in 2020 the 2015 VV was already released in Europe but for the USA the current vintage is 2012. The winery doesn’t feel the old wine is ready for that trip until it has aged in the cellar for the 5+ years and gained some maturity. To help clear up any confusion, the winery has started differentiating the bottlings by adding “Selezione Vecchie Vigne” to the front label of the old vine wine – that practice started in 2018 with the release of the 2010 vintage. Also, when the reds are decanted before leaving the cellar, the cork is stamped with the date it was decanted and labelled. So a 2002 Montepulciano could have a cork that says 2017 for example.
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