Administrative area · Italy
Umbria
Landlocked central Italy, home to the powerfully tannic Sagrantino di Montefalco.
About Umbria
Sagrantino has among the highest tannin concentrations measured in any wine grape, and Montefalco Sagrantino requires extended ageing before release.
Orvieto is the region’s historic white, based on Grechetto and Trebbiano.
No authority delimits this name or attaches rules to it. A political unit — an Italian region, an English county, a US county — used as a wine area because that is how the industry and its readers talk about it, not because a wine authority delimited it. That does not make it less real or less useful — it means nothing legal follows from it, and you will not generally find it on a label as a controlled designation.
Grapes
Wines from here
Climate
Continental and landlocked, warmer and drier than Tuscany with less maritime moderation.
These are influences on how a wine turns out, not determinants of it. Picking date, yield, vine age and every winemaking decision sit between the climate and the glass.
Soil and geology
Clay and limestone, with volcanic influence around Orvieto.
WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.
Places within it
- Montefalco — A small Umbrian hill town whose Sagrantino is among the most tannic red wines in the world.
What to eat, and how to serve it
Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.
Montefalco Sagrantino
Serve at 16–18°C (cool room temperature).
Try with roast chicken, fillet steak or grilled chicken.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Italian DOP and IGP wine register — Ministero dell’agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF)