Fattoria La Valentina | Abruzzo
Fattoria La Valentina was founded in 1990 by Sabatino Di Properzio and is located in Spoltore on the central Adriatic coast of Italy. In recent years several artisan producers have arrived in the region and begun producing top quality wines from the Abruzzo’s indigenous Montepulciano and Trebbiano grape varietals and Fattoria La Valentina has been at the very forefront of this movement. While taking a very traditional approach to farming and employing organic and biodynamic farming methods, Di Properzio also uses modern up-to-date technology, ensuring the integrity of the wine from grape to glass.
The Spoltore hillside was planted nearly 30 years ago and both the Spelt and Bellovedere wines are produced from this vineyard. The 10 acre Binomio vineyard, planted entirely with Montepulciano, is located in Abruzzo Citeriore at 1,640 ft. above sea level. The unique features of the region’s microclimate, combined with vines well-suited to the land, give the wines their distinctive qualities.
The ‘basic’ Montepulciano, if it can be called that, sees little oak, and is an intense, civilised representation of the grape’s myriad fruit and spice flavours. Spelt is a selection of top fruit from fifteen hectares of vineyards, given a longer maceration and eighteen months in oak, making for a more complex, structured wine, for drinking a little bit older. Bellovedere, meanwhile, is a single two-hectare vineyard that gives low yields of sumptuously concentrated fruit, and regularly demonstrates the brilliance to which Montepulciano can aspire.
