It has a fragrance of ripe red fruits especially of wood and jam fruits, with tones of toast cocoa and chocolate.The taste is full , round, warm, just tannic. The wine is well structured and mature.

Rocco Pasetti was for many years the Chief winemaker of the Roxan Cooperative in Abruzzo and is one of the most dynamic and talented producers in the region. More recently Rocco, with his wife Patrizia and children Franco, Ugo and Perla, has purchased his own estate, Vigna Corvino, with 30 hectares outside Pescara, planted to montepulciano and pecorino. The vines are planted on gentle hills between the Appennine Mountains and the Adriatic sea, at 250 metres above sea level. The climate and rainfall is moderate and combined with the clay soils, produces fragrant, quite rich wines. Rocco has abandoned weed killers and pesticides in favour of more natural methods.

The cellar, completed in 2004, has been carved into the hillside amongst the vines. The fermentations occur in temperature controlled stainless-steel tanks, and the maturation of the reds occurs in traditional Slavonian oak botte.

Contesa means 'argument' in Italian and is a salute to Rocco’s winemaking great grandfather, who fought a hard battle with a local landowner to preserve his own vineyards back in 1903.

Contesa Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2023