There are wine regions in Italy that, save for one or two producers of real note, have always been associated with mostly cheap wine that made for good bulk wine sales and very little else. The best thing one could say for the few good wines that were being made is that they represented inexpensive quaffers that could be served beyond frat parties, Sunday barbecues and pizza nights. In other words, they could actually be enjoyed with a simple but hearty well-cooked trattoria or home lunch or dinner. Historically, Abruzzo’s wine reality meets that description in full: like it or not, outside of Valentini (the wines of whom have always ranked with Italy’s very best) there weren’t any wine lovers or collectors that decades ago were buying Abruzzo wines at auction or laying them away next to their bottles of Château Cheval Blanc and Chave in the hopes of positive investment returns. However, times change, and it would be unfair not to recognize the immense improvement in Abruzzo’s wines that has taken place over the last twenty years, something I have written about extensively in the past. Therefore, credit needs to go to the many wineries that have worked hard to change the status quo of yesteryear. But at the same time, it is just as unfair to consumers everywhere to paint an irresponsibly rosy picture of where things are at (though some would-be experts are busy doing just that, and ask yourself why that might be).
