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Montonico grape

Slow Food Presidium · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Abruzzo

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In brief

History and origin

Montonico is an old white grape from the province of Teramo. The first written record dates from 1615: the land register of Bisenti lists a vine of this name, and later documents describe it as a fine and very productive variety. For centuries it was an important source of income for families in this mountain area on the slopes of the Gran Sasso.

Its reputation, however, did not come from wine. Montonico was above all a table grape: a register of 1938 records 14,000 quintals picked in Bisenti and in Poggio delle Rose di Cermignano and shipped to Germany. The Municipality of Bisenti notes that in those very years of the 1930s the crop went into crisis, between the phylloxera that struck the vines and heavy emigration.

After the Second World War it was increasingly used for wine, but the planted area kept shrinking until the grape almost disappeared. Today montonico is a Slow Food Presidium, and since 2010 there has also been a protected wine, within the Abruzzo DOC.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Uva montonico · Comune di Bisenti — Museo dell'Uva e del Vino Montonico

Area and method of production

The Presidium area covers Bisenti and Cermignano, with its hamlet of Poggio delle Rose, in the province of Teramo: the same hills where montonico was most widely grown in the past. The vine grows on the land below the Gran Sasso, even above 500 metres, among cold winters and hard, stony, chalky soils that its vigour has allowed it to adapt to over the centuries.

The grapes are picked at the end of September. The Municipality of Bisenti estimates that the recovery has brought the variety back on about 70 hectares in the two municipalities, mostly on small family plots.

Through the Presidium some young growers have taken over the vineyards of their parents and grandparents, replanted new plots and adopted a protocol that rules out synthetic chemicals. The grapes are made into wine, jams, cooked wine, grape-must syrup and vinegar, or left to dry.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Uva montonico · Comune di Bisenti — Museo dell'Uva e del Vino Montonico

How to recognise it

The bunch is large and long, almost cylindrical. The berries are big and round, with a thick, tough, yellow-green skin; the pulp is plentiful and the vine stands up well to grey mould.

The must is a very pale straw colour with green tints, and smells fresh and floral. According to the Municipality of Bisenti the wines are straw yellow with amber tints, with aromas of flowers, fruit and dried herbs, and on the palate they are structured, balanced and long, with a slight bitter note. The wine improves in its second year and is also used for a soft, fresh sparkling wine.

Anyone visiting Bisenti in winter also recognises montonico from a domestic sight: bunches tied one by one and hung from the house beams to dry.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Uva montonico · Comune di Bisenti — Museo dell'Uva e del Vino Montonico

In the kitchen

Traditionally montonico was eaten fresh or dried, and was also made into wine and vinegar. Its most characteristic use belongs to the holidays: the bunches, tied and hung from the beams, dry slowly and reach the table around Christmas, the traditional time to eat them.

In the production area the must is used to make vino cotto, a cooked wine, and the grapes to make jams and grape-must syrup. The Presidium has revived exactly these products, alongside wine, to give value to the recovered vineyards.

Montonico also makes a soft, lively sparkling wine: the Municipality of Bisenti relates that Napoleon's troops nicknamed it "petit champagne".

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Uva montonico · Comune di Bisenti — Museo dell'Uva e del Vino Montonico

Where to taste it

The heart of montonico is Bisenti, a village in the Fino valley in the province of Teramo, together with Poggio delle Rose di Cermignano. In Bisenti the Museum of Montonico Grapes and Wine holds a large screw press from the early nineteenth century, a cask built on the spot by the town's coopers between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, period clothes, ceramics and documents.

In October the old town hosts the grape and wine festival, the Revival Uva e Vino Montonico, one of the longest-running food and wine events in Abruzzo: four days of exhibitions, cellar visits, tastings, roaming music and a parade of floats showing scenes of the grape harvest.

The landscape is one of hills on the slopes of the Gran Sasso, dotted with small family vineyards: a chance to get to know a quieter corner of the Teramo area.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Uva montonico · Comune di Bisenti — Museo dell'Uva e del Vino Montonico

Protection

When

Where

Abruzzo