Giuseppe Savini Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Riserva 750ml

Giuseppe Savini's 2020 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Riserva spends a minimum of two years aging before release, a patience that shows in the glass: this is a wine built for structure, not just fruit. Montepulciano as a grape gets a bad rap for cheap, flabby bottlings, but the Riserva designation forces producers to slow down, and Savini uses that extra time well, letting tannins soften and secondary notes develop alongside the grape's natural dark-fruited core. The 2020 growing season in Abruzzo gave winemakers warm, steady conditions, and you can taste that ripeness here — plum, black cherry, and dried fig sit up front, backed by notes of leather, dried herbs, and a faint smokiness that comes from extended oak contact. The tannins are firm but not aggressive, and there's enough acidity running underneath to keep the wine from feeling heavy, even with its deeper, more savory profile. This isn't a fruit-bomb red; it's a wine with some grip and earthiness to it, the kind of bottle that opens up over an hour and keeps giving you something new. Montepulciano d'Abruzzo has always been one of Italy's better values, and the Riserva tier is where that value proposition gets really interesting — you're getting Barolo-adjacent patience and structure without the Barolo price tag. Pour this with braised short ribs, a lamb ragu, or a hard, aged pecorino. It's also a strong match for grilled sausages or anything with a charred, smoky edge, since the wine's own smokiness plays well against char. This is a bottle for people who want an Italian red that does more than coast on juicy fruit — something with some age-worthiness and tannic backbone, but still approachable enough for a weeknight dinner if you decant it for twenty minutes first. We've got it in stock at Off Premise, and it's worth grabbing a couple of bottles if you're the type to let wine sit for a few more years.