Torre dei Beati

The people behind it

Torre dei Beati is a family-run farm at Loreto Aprutino. It was founded in 1999, when the family decided to take over the vineyard their father Rocco had farmed for many years, since 1972 according to the English version of the website. Convinced that a wine's quality cannot be separated from its genuineness, the new growers immediately converted the vineyard to organic farming, and the first bottle came out in 2000.

The name comes from a fifteenth-century fresco in the town's church of Santa Maria in Piano. In the great Last Judgement the "tower of the blessed" is the goal the souls strive towards after hard trials, and the family sees in it the principle of its own work: meticulous selection in the vineyard and the cellar to bring out the best of the native grapes. The first production space was on the ground floor of the old farmhouse in the middle of the vineyard; a barrel room and a new winery followed, and the range grew with variations on Montepulciano and, later, with vineyards of Pecorino and Trebbiano. On the website the growers write that they do not care for fashions or for labelling themselves with a movement, and that they work to leave their children a land that is whole and alive.

Sources: Torre dei Beati — sito ufficiale · Torre dei Beati — English

What they make

The winery grows a few native grapes and likes to vinify them on their own. The Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo "Rosa-ae" is, the estate writes, the first expression of the vintage from the Cordisco grape and the first sign of how the harvest is going. Montepulciano comes in several versions: the "Cocciapazza" Riserva bears the old name of the area where the vineyards lie and comes from the best-placed parts of the vineyard, while "Mazzamurello", named after the mischievous goblin of Abruzzo folklore, spends twenty months in French oak barriques on its fine lees.

Among the whites, the Pecorino "Giocheremo con i fiori" comes from five hectares planted in 2005 at 300 metres and rests six months on its lees in steel; under the name "Bianchi Grilli" the family makes small batches of white wine born from a wish to experiment, the whims it cannot get out of its head. There is also an extra virgin olive oil: about four hundred trees between Loreto Aprutino and Corvara, at 300 to 500 metres, mostly Dritta and Leccio del Corno with a little Leccino and table olives such as Intosso and Santa Caterina, picked by hand and milled very quickly. The website suggests the Rosa-ae with brodetto alla vastese, the fish stew of Vasto.

Sources: Torre dei Beati — I prodotti

Ingredients and territory

Torre dei Beati farms 21 hectares at Loreto Aprutino, between 250 and 300 metres above sea level and 25 kilometres from the Adriatic, on the first clay and limestone foothills that close off the Tavo valley and rise towards the Gran Sasso. By day the vineyard gets mild air from the sea; at night, especially in the last month of ripening, the cold that flows down from the mountain, already white with snow in September. The older vines are trained on the Abruzzo pergola, the newer ones on high-density wires, and farming is certified organic. For the Rosa-ae the website lists 13 hectares of Cordisco planted in 1972 and 1995.

Harvesting is done only in successive passes: each time the healthy, ripe bunches are picked and the rest stay on the vine until the next pass. The grapes travel in twenty-kilo crates to the winery, in the restored old farmhouse in the middle of the vineyard, where they are sorted again on a selection table. For the Rosa-ae the technical sheet describes three paths that come together in steel: a very gentle direct pressing of whole, unstemmed bunches, a run-off from the reds after a cold pre-maceration, and a cold maceration on the skins, with fermentation at 15 to 16 degrees. On the page about organic farming the growers admit that, without synthetic chemicals, part of the crop is sometimes lost.

Sources: Torre dei Beati — I vigneti · Torre dei Beati — sito ufficiale · Torre dei Beati — I prodotti · Torre dei Beati — La vigna, il vino, il biologico

Recognition

In Gambero Rosso's Vini d'Italia 2026 guide, Torre dei Beati's Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo Rosa-ae 2024 won Tre Bicchieri, the guide's highest award. The list of sixteen winning Abruzzo wines was published on 20 September 2025, and the editorial commentary gives Cerasuolo a specific passage: the 2024 harvest brought larger volumes and above all a much better average quality, with Cerasuolos able to convey the energy of Montepulciano in a lighter, fresher and more immediate form, wines that bring together in a single glass the two souls of Abruzzo, the mountains and the coast.

The Rosa-ae is a Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo DOC made only from Cordisco grapes. The estate's sheet describes it as bright cherry red, with aromas of strawberry, pomegranate and cherry, a hint of the citrus typical of the area and rose to the fore among its floral notes, and suggests it with Italian antipasti, pulse soups, white meat, fish and pizza. It is not the first award for this wine: the winery's website notes that the Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo 2018 was Gambero Rosso's Rosé of the Year in the 2020 edition, and that the 2020 Cerasuolo was named among the hundred best rosés in Italy by Slow Food.

Sources: Gambero Rosso International — Tre Bicchieri 2026, the best wines of Abruzzo awarded by Gambero Rosso · Torre dei Beati — I prodotti · Torre dei Beati — sito ufficiale

Going there

The vineyard and winery are at Contrada Poggioragone 56, in the countryside of Loreto Aprutino, in the province of Pescara; the registered office is at Francavilla al Mare. To ask for an appointment the estate gives the address info@torredeibeati.it and the form on its contact page; the published number, 085 4916069, is a fax.

Loreto Aprutino is worth the day. The winery's website describes it as one of the oldest and most important towns in the province, with a landscape shaped by farming: olive groves and vineyards alternating with vegetable plots, arable fields and patches of scrub, and badland ridges set against gentle hills that, according to archaeological finds, were permanently settled as early as 4,500 years before Christ. For olive oil the town is, the estate writes, one of Italy's capitals. In town is the church of Santa Maria in Piano with the great fifteenth-century Last Judgement that gave the winery its name: it is worth looking for the detail of the tower of the blessed before heading up to Poggioragone. The growers also describe the town they love, made of countryside both cultivated and wild, narrow lanes between brick walls, traditional festivals and conversations at the bar, a rural civilisation still far from global noise.

Sources: Torre dei Beati — Contatti · Torre dei Beati — I vigneti · Torre dei Beati — I prodotti · Torre dei Beati — sito ufficiale · Torre dei Beati — La vigna, il vino, il biologico

Products and flavours

The region

Abruzzo