Torre dei Beati

The Free Bacchus Story

In 1999 Adriana Galasso and Fausto Albanesi took over the family vineyard at Loreto Aprutino that Rocco, the father, had farmed for many years. They converted it to organic farming at once and bottled their first wine in 2000. Her cousin, who runs one of the region’s very large wineries, told them they would certainly go bankrupt.

Abruzzo sits on Italy’s Adriatic side, between the Apennine mountains and the sea. Its red grape is Montepulciano, which has nothing to do with the Tuscan town of that name and makes a darker, softer wine than Sangiovese. The estate’s 21 hectares lie at 250 to 300 metres, 25 kilometres from the coast, with the mountains close enough to cool the nights.

The estate is frank about what organic farming costs. Some years, it says, it loses part of the crop despite every care, and it accepts that as the price of keeping the chemistry out of its hills. The oldest vines, planted in 1972, grow on the pergola abruzzese, the region’s traditional high trellis, and in a fertile region the struggle is to make them yield less.

The EU organic register lists Torre dei Beati under CCPB for its grapes and its wine, and every wine is made from the estate’s own grapes.

Cocciapazza, the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva named after the old name for the land where the vines grow, is the flagship. The plain Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, the first wine the estate made, is the easy way in.