Appellation · Italy
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano
Sangiovese from a hill town in southern Tuscany — and the reason "Montepulciano" is two entirely unrelated things on a wine label.
Medium-to-full bodied dry red with sour cherry, plum, dried herbs and a savoury edge. High acidity, moderate-to-firm tannin, drinkable from five years.
About Vino Nobile di Montepulciano
Montepulciano is a hill town in southern Tuscany. Montepulciano is also a black grape variety grown principally in Abruzzo, 250 km away. They are unrelated, and the confusion is one of the most persistent in Italian wine.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made from Sangiovese, not from the Montepulciano grape. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is made from the Montepulciano grape and has nothing to do with the town.
The wine itself sits between Chianti Classico and Brunello — riper and softer than the former, lighter and less demanding than the latter, with the same sour-cherry-and-herbs signature.
It was among the first four Italian wines granted DOCG status in 1980, and it has spent the decades since being overshadowed by both its neighbours.
What the name means
- Legal name
- Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG
- Type
- Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)
- Set by
- Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, under MASAF
- Recognised
- 1980
- Regulates
- Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.
Everything a DOC controls, plus a compulsory analytical and tasting examination before bottling and a numbered state seal on the neck. The tier above DOC in regulatory strictness, which is not the same as guaranteed quality.
A minimum of 70% Sangiovese, known locally as Prugnolo Gentile, with two years’ minimum ageing. Rosso di Montepulciano is the younger-release equivalent.
Grapes
Wines from here
Rules worth knowing
Confirmed in the EU register
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-IT-A1308, protected at EU level since 1973.
Article 107 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013
Specification published: Official Journal C, C/2025/2742, 15.5.2025 · Official Journal
Only the rules that change what to expect in the glass or on the label. WineHQ does not reproduce production specifications, and each entry carries the date it was last checked because appellation rules change.
Label terminology
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made from Sangiovese in the Tuscan commune of Montepulciano. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is made from the unrelated Montepulciano grape variety in Abruzzo. The word names a place in the first case and a grape in the second.
Why it matters. Two common wines share a word that means different things, and the labels give a reader no way to tell without knowing this in advance. It is the clearest case in Italian wine of a name that has to be disambiguated rather than translated.
MASAF · Consistently reported, not read at the regulator · checked 2026-08-16
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.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano
Serve at 15–17°C (cellar cool).
Try with roast chicken, fillet steak or pork.
Where to go next
Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.
- Brunello di Montalcino — Sangiovese alone, from one warm Tuscan hilltop, held for five years before release — Italy’s most powerful expression of the variety.
- Chianti Classico — The original Chianti — the hills between Florence and Siena, delimited in 1716, and a separate appellation from the Chianti that surrounds it.
- Montepulciano d’Abruzzo — The Montepulciano grape in Abruzzo — nothing to do with the Tuscan town of the same name, and one of Italy’s best-value reds.
Approximate centroid: 43.10°, 11.79°. WineHQ stores coordinates only where it has them, and does not estimate boundaries it has not sourced.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Italian DOP and IGP wine register — Ministero dell’agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF)
- Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano — Consorzio del Vino Nobile di Montepulciano