Tenuta del Professore Trebbiano d'Abruzzo Riserva

Tenuta del Professore is the D'Alesio grandchildren's tribute to their grandfather, Mario D'Alesio. Born in 1922 at Colle di Moro, in Città Sant'Angelo, he taught agriculture for 45 years. He spent them spreading farming and wine culture, planting vines in every form, from bush vines to rows, from low-trained vines to the tall tendone. This wine, the back label says, comes from the last vineyard he planted, with Trebbiano he chose himself. His son Lanfranco, who runs the cellar, has said his father would have found the scents and taste of his own work in this label.

The front label is a section of the 1882 map of Italy, on which a Masseria d'Alesio is already marked near Colle di Moro.

The producer's sheet places the vineyard at 300 metres, facing south-east on medium-density clay, trained high on the pergola abruzzese. It gives a yield of about 50 hl/ha and a careful sorting of bunches picked by hand in September, then a soft pressing and fermentation in steel. The Italian version of the sheet puts the vines at about 30 years old, the English one at 50.

What sets the wine apart is the wait. The sheet calls for at least 36 months in steel, then at least 24 in 30-hectolitre Allier oak casks, then at least six in bottle: at least five and a half years in all. The appellation's rules at the time asked a Riserva for eighteen months.

The family releases a wine only when it judges it ready. The 2016 was presented at the winery in September 2023, seven years after the harvest, alongside three other new labels. It ran to 4,000 numbered bottles.

2016 was a wet year in Abruzzo. Assoenologi's vintage report describes almost daily rain in the region, with Trebbiano picked from mid-September into early October. It found the grapes healthy and heavy, but with sugar a little below 2015 and phenolic ripeness only partial. The same report notes an April frost that hit Abruzzo in particular.