Taverna Nova Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

The Italians are great. With hundreds of wine regions, styles, grape varieties and quality variations that span the very best and the very worst of winemaking, they must have been having a laugh when they decided to give the same name to two vastly different wines. Montepulciano the lovely town in Tuscany lends its pretty name to the sometimes wonderful Sangiovese-based winesVino Nobile di Montepulciano and its little sibling Rosso di Montepulciano - see Poliziano for top examples of both.

Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, on the other hand is from Montepulciano, the grape variety and comes from Abbruzo on the east coast of Italy, heading south. It is a wine often viewed as a somewhat rustic country cousin of its more polished Tuscan namesakes, a view that somewhat compares apples with oranges as they tend to be at very different price points.

The version viewed to the right is a good example, chunky, dark fruit soft tannins, fresh acidity. Give it a bowl of meatballs on a Tuesday night, watching the football or whatever and you will not go wrong. Now only €8.99. Bargain.