Aside from the great wines of Friuli, Italy's nobler whites are few and far between. Notwithstanding the country's lamentable success in flogging tons of Pinot Grigio, Frascati, and Vermentino to markets across the globe, the search for their distinguished counterparts is not a simple one. Recently, producers like Mastroberardino and Feudi di San Gregorio have made the lemony-fresh wines of the Naples hinterland fashionable, and a small group of connoisseurs have always sought out whites from places like Valle D'Aosta and Liguria. Opinions vary as to what the greatest Italian white outside of Friuli might be — some claim it comes not from a noted wine region at all but from the backwoods of one of the country's poorest areas, Abruzzo, at a tiny vineyard called Valentini.
Abruzzo is a forbidding place, mountainous and sparsely populated. Its capital is L'Aquila, about two hours east of Rome, a place of dark stones and sunless streets. The Apennines run through the region, dividing it in two. Along its remote roads, cornfields and Roman ruins are framed by peaks of snow. But toward Pescara, on the Adriatic coast, the climate becomes gentler, and it is here that Abruzzo's wine business is quietly reviving itself. On rolling slopes that descend toward the sea, popular commercial producers like Masciarelli are making the peppy cheap reds from the Montepulciano d'Abruzzo grape that have taken American wine stores by storm. It's also where more lofty producers like Emidio Pepe are crafting traditionalist wines, both red and white, that have enjoyed considerable succès d'estime.
A few miles inland from Pescara, but still within sight of the sea and amid the largest olive-oil production area in Italy, the hill town of Loreto Aprutino presents a classic Italian skyline of campaniles and sloped roofs. The Valentini winery sits right next to the manicured Castello Chiola at the town's highest point. (The castle now houses an upscale hotel.) On a frigid day in February, with snow on the ground, there was no one up there, and there were certainly no wine tourists at the Azienda Valentini. To the door of its elegant premises — quite anonymous and with none of the gimmicky signage that winemakers now adore — came a tall squire in crumpled corduroys: 46-year-old Francesco Valentini, who has been running the winery since the death of his father, Edoardo, in April 2006 at the age of 72. Francesco speaks no English, though there is an air of quiet cosmopolitan sophistication about him. And he seemed quite amused that anyone would drive out here from Rome on such a cold morning.
"We're not exactly on the tourist beat," he told me. "Not when it's snowing."
