Roccamontepiano cotta (cooked-must wine)

History and origin

Roccamontepiano is a small mountain town in the province of Chieti, on the eastern side of the Maiella, and for centuries its name has been tied to the «cotta», the local way of cooking grape must to make vino cotto. The drink is found in many parts of Abruzzo and central Italy and has deep roots: the sources note that Latin authors such as Plautus, Pliny and Columella wrote about it, and that in Roman times it was served at the end of a meal.

In Abruzzo the oldest written record is a study by Filippo Rizzi on the cooking of must, published in 1811. In 1971 Mario Soldati called it an excellent dessert wine, brick red with dark gold glints.

The best-loved custom belongs to families: when a child is born, a cask is laid down and opened on their wedding day. A cask of cotta was valuable enough to be part of a bride's dowry.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cotta di Roccamontepiano · Italia.it — Liquori e distillati tipici abruzzesi · Italia.it — Il vino cotto, un tesoro di tradizione

Area and method of production

The work is done in autumn, after the grape harvest. The must comes mainly from Montepulciano d'Abruzzo grapes, together with other local varieties, and is cooked above 100 degrees for anywhere from 7 to more than 12 hours, until it shrinks to about a third. The degree of reduction is what sets one village's cotta apart from another's across Abruzzo.

In the past a large copper cauldron, «lu callare», was used, with a piece of iron and a shard of terracotta dropped in to steady the boil; today steel boilers with temperature control are used, and an old cauldron is kept as a memento. Fresh must is added to the reduced must in equal parts, then left to ferment and put into casks for at least a year.

In Roccamontepiano the cooking is shared: members of a cooperative bring grapes from local vineyards to a common facility, then each takes home their own vino cotto.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cotta di Roccamontepiano · Italia.it — Il vino cotto, un tesoro di tradizione

How to recognise it

Cotta has an intense aroma and a dry, savoury finish that balances its sweetness. The colour ranges from dark amber to garnet red, up to the shade locals call «occhio di gallo», rooster's eye. Its strength, the result of the high sugar concentration, is about 15 degrees.

One year in the cask is the minimum, but ageing can go on for decades, sometimes beyond forty years: with time the fragrance holds and the quality improves. Abruzzo's vino cotto is classed as dry or sweet according to its residual sugar.

The Presidium's output is small, around fifteen hundred bottles a year, labelled with the cooperative's name: it is something to look for on the spot rather than come across by chance.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cotta di Roccamontepiano · Italia.it — Il vino cotto, un tesoro di tradizione · Italia.it — Liquori e distillati tipici abruzzesi

In the kitchen

It is the drink of hospitality: offered with desserts or on its own, as a digestif, at the end of a meal. In Abruzzo vino cotto has a place in the wedding toast, when the groom's father opens the cask prepared at his son's birth, and it has also been described as a home remedy for colds and flu, as well as a dessert wine for great occasions.

Part of the cooked must never becomes wine but goes into traditional sweets, and vino cotto sits alongside the home-made liqueurs that close Abruzzo meals.

Mario Soldati, tasting it, noted its smoky, slightly rough flavour, which tempers the sweetness and keeps it from the cloying quality of many passito wines: a character that makes it well suited to ending a meal without weighing it down.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cotta di Roccamontepiano · Italia.it — Il vino cotto, un tesoro di tradizione · Italia.it — Liquori e distillati tipici abruzzesi

Where to taste it

The place is Roccamontepiano, in the Chieti area, on the eastern slopes of the Maiella: here are the cooperative's shared facility and the Presidium producers, who sell their own vino cotto directly or keep it for family and gifts.

Every year, in early November, the vino cotto festival fills the old town with tastings, music, folk traditions and walks in the woods: the best moment to taste cotta alongside the people who make it.

The village lies in the same Chieti province as the Trabocchi coast, on the eastern side of the Maiella: an inland stop for anyone exploring that part of Abruzzo. Vino cotto turns up elsewhere in Abruzzo too, but this village's cotta has its own technique and community organisation.

Sources: Italia.it — Il vino cotto, un tesoro di tradizione · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cotta di Roccamontepiano

Protection

• Slow Food Presidium — cotta-di-roccamontepiano (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cotta di Roccamontepiano)

When

• The sources consulted give no months.

Where

Abruzzo