Sagrantino

Sagrantino is grown almost entirely around the hill town of Montefalco in Umbria, on a few hundred hectares, and it contains more tannin than any other measured wine grape — higher in polyphenols than Tannat, Nebbiolo or Cabernet Sauvignon.

That makes it extremely difficult to handle. Montefalco Sagrantino must by law be aged for at least thirty-seven months, including twelve in wood, and even then a young bottle can be forbidding: intensely dark, with blackberry, black plum and damson fruit buried under tannin that dries the mouth completely. Given a decade it resolves into something remarkable, with liquorice, tar, dried fig, tobacco and earth.

The grape's origins are uncertain. The name suggests a connection to sacrament, and the traditional wine of Montefalco was not the dry red at all but a sweet passito — grapes dried on mats and fermented to a rich, tannic dessert wine served at Easter. Dry Sagrantino is a modern invention, dating from the 1970s and largely the work of a few local producers including Marco Caprai.

It was close to extinct in the 1960s, with only a handful of hectares remaining. Its recovery is one of the more complete revivals in Italian wine, and it now has DOCG status and an international following.

It is a wine that rewards patience and punishes impatience, and the passito version remains the more historically authentic of the two styles.