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Beverage Terroir · VI The Beverage Tradition

Sagrantino di Montefalco Passito

‹ The Beverage Tradition

I

Origin

Montefalco, Perugia, Umbria

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Description

Umbria's historic passito wine from the Sagrantino grape — one of Italy's most tannic grape varieties, grown only in the Montefalco zone of Perugia. For the passito style: bunches are dried on straw mats (appassimento) for 4-6 weeks until shrivelled and concentrated, pressed, and fermented slowly to produce a deep red, almost black, intensely sweet wine of extraordinary tannic grip and dried-fruit-and-dark-chocolate complexity. Long aged in Slovenian oak for 18-24 months. The counterpart to the Secco (dry) Sagrantino DOCG — both from the same grape, completely different expressions.

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The Thread

—Both are intensely sweet, heavily tannic fortified or passito wines from a single native grape variety of extreme polyphenol content — Portuguese Port fortifies with brandy to stop fermentation, Italian Sagrantino uses natural appassimento concentration, both achieving similar sweetness-and-tannin profiles Portuguese
—Both are dark, sweet, tannic wines from a single grape variety (Grenache for Banyuls, Sagrantino for Montefalco) that pair specifically with dark chocolate — the high polyphenol content of both wines specifically complements the catechins in dark chocolate French · (Roussillon)
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Flavour Context

Dense, black-fruit-dark, almost tar-like sweetness with enormous tannic backbone and dried cherry, dark chocolate, and tobacco complexity — a wine that rewards patience and demanding food

Pillars V — VII
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