Tenuta di Montegiove, 05010 Montegabbione (TR), Umbria, ITALIA. VINEYARDS AND WINES OF MONTEGIOVE |
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CASTLE
OF MONTEGIOVE Country house Extra virgin olive oil DOC Red wine History of the Castle Guided tours of the castle CASTELLO DI MONTEGIOVE MONTEGIOVE SLOT SCHLOSS MONTEGIOVE CHÂTEAU MONTEGIOVE
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The Marquis Paolo Misciattelli Mocenigo Soranzo writes in 1968.. The cellars of the Castle of Montegiove are not a large scale industrial plant, but those of a large farm where the owners for generations have adopted progressive farming practices and perfected their wines and vineyards. The terrain where the more than 70 hectares of specialised vineyards extends is particularly well suited to growing wine grapes and the production of high quality wine. This is evident in the 1281 registry of the city-state of Orvieto, where all of the land of the county of Montegiove was surveyed and a large part of it registerd as vineyards by the local monks. After the devastation of the phyloxera in the early years of the 20th century many of the vineyards where replanted with foreign varieties, primarily French. This came about as a result of the research conducted a century earlier by the Marquis Geremia Misciattelli, a man of great vision and agricultural and industrial innovator. For example, he was the first to introduce foreign grape varieties in Umbria. The new vineyards were planted as a blend of Gamay, Cabernet, Montepulciano and Barbera, which yields a redwine that in style approximates the best of the Beaujolais. The wine is aged in large Slavonian oak casks, commercialised after three years, and exclusively bottled at the Castle of Montegiove.
The Vineyards and Wines of Today Large parts of the vineyards of the estate of Castle of Montegiove are currently being replanted. The number of fields allocated to viticulture has been reduced in comparison to the seventies, to permit the estate to concentrate on the production of red grapes of high quality. The new vineyards are all planted with more than 4000 vines per hectare using a trellis system known as: "cordone speronato". The vineyards include typical Umbrian and Tuscan varieties: Sangiovese using the classic clones of Brunello and Prugnolo gentile known from the famous wine districts of Montalcino and Montepulciano. The other varieties are: Sagrantino (indigenous Umbrian variety), selection of high quality producing French clones of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. The estate still has vineyards from the seventies which include: Montepulciano, Barbera and Sangiovese in a classic guyot trellis system. The castle stopped bottling wine under its own label in 1985 and its wine cellar is currently under reconstruction. When completed, the renovation will make the Castle of Montegiove once again an important player in the Umbrian and Italian wine scene as celebrated as it was in the 1970s. |
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