Suppose you were asked to pick a few classic but affordable red wines from Tuscany. Little chance you would choose a Chianti Classico or Brunello di Montalcino because the best of these wines are costly now. You might include a few overachievers from Rosso di Montalcino, Morellino di Scansano or even just Chianti. But only a scant few would pick a Vino Nobile di Montepulciano – one of the smallest DOCGs in Tuscany, with only 1,300 hectares of vines and arguably a lukewarm afterthought for Tuscan wines.
After years of struggling as the more rustic sibling of the better-recognized Chianti Classico and the well-respected Brunello, we find there has been a minor renaissance of quality around the quiet and small town of Montepulciano, some 100 kilometers from the vineyards of Chianti in the north and a 40-minute drive from Montalcino in the west.
Not so different from Barolo, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano has a glorious history to recount. In his 1865 poem “Bacchus in Tuscany,” the Italian physician and poet Francesco Redi praised the local Montepulciano pour as “the King of Wines,” and so the term Vino Nobile (“noble wine’) became the appellation, suggesting an aristocratic, superior quality. Despite a downturn of quality in the 1970s, when regulations were loose and wines were rather dilute and rustic, in 1980 Vino Nobile became one of the first four appellations bestowed with the superior status of DOCG, along with Barolo, Brunello di Montalcino and Barbaresco.
