Pecorino Abruzzo, Contesa 2022

Rocco Pasetti is one of the most dynamic and talented producers we know and a great champion of wines of the Abruzzo. He was for many years the chief winemaker of the Roxan cooperative and one of the reasons we chose their Montepulciano as a Society wine.

More recently he bought his own estate, Vigna Corvino, with 30 hectares outside Pescara, planted with montepulciano and the local white grape pecorino. He also created his own model winery in the centre of the vines. These are planted on gentle hills between the Appennini mountains and the Adriatic sea – at 250 metres above sea level – with moderate rainfall and clay soils, which produce fragrant, rich wines. Rocco has abandoned weed killers and pesticides in favour of more natural methods.

The cellar was completed in 2004 and is carved into the hillside. As well as temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks, the winery boasts a barrel room filled with Slavonian oak barrels.

Rocco, his wife Patrizia, sons Franco and Ugo and daughter Perla have frequently visited and met members at our Italian tastings. Contesa means ‘quarrel’ in Italian and is a nod back to Rocco’s winemaking great grandfather, who fought a hard battle with a local landowner to preserve his own vineyards back in 1903.