Grape: Trebbiano d'Abruzzo
 
Manual harvesting, the exclusive use of the best grapes, spontaneous fermentation, indigenous yeasts, uncontrolled temperature, the absence of clarifications or filtrations: 
these are just some of the typical phases of what is behind this masterpiece.
 
Notes on the Producer
There may have been no greater cult figure in Italian wine than the late Edoardo Valentini, the mysterious producer of Italy’s greatest white, the mythic Valentini Trebbiano d’Abruzzo. This extraordinary wine became legendary due to the intensity, complexity and ageworthiness reported by those lucky enough to have tasted it. And the legend was only fueled by its extreme rarity and Valentini’s reluctance to talk about how he made it. What is known is that he ripped up the existing plantings of the characterless Trebbiano Toscano clone. He replaced it with an ancient local clone, Trebbiano d’Abruzzese, convinced it best conveyed the soul of his terroir. And he relied on venerable Roman winemaking methods to express this with startling clarity. Furthermore, he didn’t make it every year. And when he did, he only bottled 5% of his fruit, selling off the rest for not meeting his perfectionist standards.
Edoardo passed away in 2006 after making this amazing wine for fifty vintages. But his son Francesco, schooled from an early age in his father’s singular ways, hasn’t missed a beat, fashioning epic Trebbianos since his first solo vintage in 2007. In fact, they may be even better than before. Francesco has brought greater consistency and elegance to this profound wine, while sacrificing none of its transcendent character. Whether made by Edoardo or Francesco, production of the Trebbiano has always been microscopic, making the wine almost impossible to source. Yet, its elusiveness is about to jump several-fold, due to a freak fall blizzard in 2013 which destroyed many of the old Trebbiano d’Abruzzese vines that produce it.