Masciarelli: Current Releases from Abruzzo’s Quality Pioneer
Gianni Masciarelli is the quality pioneer of Italy’s Abruzzo region, recognized as such by Gambero Rosso’s award of “Best Wine in Italy” a few years ago. Inspired by harvests in Champagne, he founded his winery in 1981 After his untimely passing in 2008, his wife Marina Cvetic, shown here with daughter Miriam Lee Masciarelli (now the winery’s brand ambassador), continue to honor Gianni’s obsession with quality. The winery now has 292 hectares of vineyards, the largest privately owned vineyard in Abruzzo, seven product lines, and produces almost 200 thousand cases of wine annually. In this article, we review the core of the Masciarelli portfolio, the Villa Gemma and Marina Cvetic collections. The Villa Gemma wines are reserve-level wines sourced from the home vineyard in San Martino, Chieti, Abruzzo that dates to 1930, while the Marina Cvetic wines are more modern in style. Attilio Alfino is the winemaker; he holds a doctorate in viticulture and technology from the Università Politecnica delle Marche.
The importer of wines from Masciarelli Tenute Agricole is Vintus.
The Wines
Winemaker Attilio Alfino
Masciarelli 2022 Villa Gemma Abruzzo Bianco ($24) 90 Light yellow straw. The Bianco opens with intricate scents of dried herbs and straw. It reveals a medium weight palate of orchard fruit and herbs with a light saline note. There’s good balancing acidity that lends the wine a freshness. A blend of 50% Trebbiano, 30% Pecorino, and 20% Cocciola from vineyards with an average age of 37 years, separately fermented in stainless steel and later blended. 13% alc.
Masciarelli 2020 Marina Cvetic Trebbiano d’Abruzzo Riserva ($60) 93 Medium yellow gold. Revealing toasty hazelnut and honeysuckle note on the nose, this is an oak fermented and aged Trebbiano with a firm backbone, full mouth feel, and lovely palate texture. Citrus and stone fruit flavors are wrapped in toasty oak, finishing long and precise. A 100% Trebbiano sourced from 20-year-old vines and fermented in new French oak and aged in barriques for 12 months. 14% ac.
Masciarelli 2022 Villa Gemma Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo Superiore ($24) 92 Light red. The nose reveals fresh, bright scents of raspberry and tart red cherry. Light and fruity, the fresh red berry palate has good acidity, exhilarating freshness and purity and a very long, precise finish. A beautiful, rosé style wine. Made from 30-year-old vines, fermented in stainless steel and aged on the fine lees for 3 months. 14% alc.
Miriam Lee Masciarelli
Masciarelli 2019 Marina Cvetic Riserva Montepulciano d’Abruzzo ($38) 92 Dark carmine red. Beautifully aromatic boquet with notes of dark plum and violets. Soft on entry, revealing huckleberry, purple plum, and spice with good density and fine tannins. Finishes long with balancing acidity. Sourced from top vineyards with varied altitudes, soils, and training methods. The fruit from each vineyard is separately vinified, aged in new French oak barriques for 12 months and then blended and aged in bottle. 14.5% alc.
Masciarelli 2018 Villa Gemma Riserva Montepulciano d’Abruzzo ($98) 95 Opaque ruby with purplish reflections. Opening with smoky, toasty oak aromas married to dense dark berry fruit, the exquisite Riserva Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is dense and flavor-rich with spice notes. It reveals a silky texture in the mouth with excellent extract, finishing very long with moderate tannic grip and sustained flavors. Fermented in stainless steel with long skin contact then aged 12 months in new French oak. 15% alc.
