The Abruzzo province's main red wine grape is Montepulciano. This grape makes a wine that is very pleasing to the Australian palate. It always has big bold, crimson purple colour ,and is concentrated and full flavoured. Somewhat like a shiraz. The wine for this vineyard comes from a higher altitude vineyard, around 600m above sea level. The Pasetti family is very conscious of climate change and want to establish some vineyards in the cooler, higher altitude areas.
The literal translation of the name of this wine is “Ask the Dust”, which is the title of a book by the most revered author from the Abruzzo Province. It is Contesa’s most important wine and they wanted to give it worthy name.
"After the grapes are harvested and crushed, the wine is transferred to massive old 30,000 litre Slovenian oak vats where it spends 30 months. This allows the wine to develop complexity without taking on any oak flavour. The finished wine has the beautiful bright, deep crimson of Montepulciano, it is full of sweet red fruit flavours but has a more lifted, more elegant profile compared to it’s sister wine grown on the hotter, lower slopes. It has a lovely long finish and is a wine of high quality."
