Ratings:
95+
Ian Dagata - Vinous Media
"Bright ruby. Precise, spicy aromas of ripe red berries, dark plum and violet accented by cumin and caraway seed. At once densely packed and broad but juicy and refined too, boasting terrific acid-fruit-tannin balance and penetrating red cherry, underbrush and sweet spice flavors. This lovely wine is suave and fine-grained and finishes very long. It would be prudent to decant this at least two-three hours ahead; one bottle I had was initially marred by almost unacceptable levels of funkiness, another was instead brilliantly pure and clean, so allowing this wine to breathe a little prior to serving is not a bad idea.
There’s not much I can add to all that has been said and written about this famous estate in recent years. Only 15 hectares (certified organically farmed) and about 80,000 bottles a year are produced (and much sought after by collectors everywhere). If anything, I wish to point out that the wines are actually getting even better, if that’s at all possible. The Pecorino this year is the best I have ever tasted from Emidio Pepe, a real knockout wine, and the 2010 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo promises to go down as one of the four or five best they have ever made. As usual, a lot of aeration is necessary to wave off the typical Emidio Pepe funk, but once that blows off you are left with a truly noble, refined expression of Montepulciano wine in 2010. Well done."
95 John Gilman - View from the Cellar
"The 2010 Montepulciano from Emidio Pepe has absolutely brilliant potential, and it is very easy to see why both Emidio and his daughter Sofia are so excited about the quality of this vintage. The bouquet is deep, pure and youthfully promising, offering up scents of black cherries, tar, balsam boughs, a fine base of dark soil, incipient notes of botanicals and a bit of chicory in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and nascently complex, with a fine core, firm, ripe tannins, tangy acids and a very long, focused and beautifully balanced finish that closes with excellent grip and bounce. This is still very early days for this wine, but it will prove to be an utter classic."
Product Description:
"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 has remained unchanged philosophically since Emidio Pepe took over the estate in 1964. Since 1997, the business and wine production has been in the hands of the fourth generation of the Pepe family with sisters, Daniela and Sofia. 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 siliceous soil rich in lime and iron. The Trebbiano is foot trodden in wooden tubs in order to avoid the contact between the iron presses and the acids of the fruit. The resulting white wines are slightly golden hued, well balanced and complex, with hints of nuts, hay, and yellow fruits. The Montepulciano bares little relation to most other wines of this appellation. These wines are big and bold, filled with intense flavors of dried black cherries, licorice and wild herbs.
The winemaking regime at Pepe follows an uber-natural and artisinal path as well. Grapes are grown biodynamically, hand-harvested, hand-destemmed, naturally fermented and aged 18-24 months in glass-lined tanks. The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered, without added SO2, and aged in their cellar, in bottle, for continued development. Before release, the wines are decanted by hand into new bottles, and then labeled. An extensive stock of older vintages is kept at the cellar." -Importer
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