Emidio Pepe is a pioneer of Italian biodynamic winemaking and his estate produces some of the country’s most age-worthy, legendary wines. The estate is a benchmark producer of Montepulciano and Trebbiano d’Abruzzo and is in an almost perfect location for growing these grapes. The now 15-hectare estate is in the hills between the Adriatic Sea and Apennine Mountains, meaning the vines receive warm summer sun but also cooling sea breezes.

The Pepe estate has been in the family since the late 1800s and for much of that time its grapes were sold to the local co-operative. In 1964, Emidio Pepe decided his grapes were too good to sell and started making his own wines.  

Realising that investing in machinery would mean an endless cycle of upgrades, maintenance and renewals, Pepe decided to follow an artisanal and traditional path to producing wine. It’s quite rare to find such a raw expression in that era of industrialised winemaking, but the approach is paying dividends.

All grapes are grown biodynamically, harvested and destemmed by hand and fermented with indigenous yeast. The Trebbiano is trodden by foot in wooden tubs and the Montepulciano is crushed by hand. The wine is aged for up to two years in glass-lined cement tanks. Pepe deliberately avoids oak as he sees it as an nontraditional way of maturing wine which creates unnecessary tones in the wine. He also follows reductive practices to limit the wine’s oxygen exposure, contributing to each vintage’s long cellaring ability.

The wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered and is cellar-aged for continued development. At least half of the wine produced remains in the cellar – today containing around 350,000 bottles – and is released only when the family feels the vintage is at its best expression.

Older reds, more than 10 years old, are decanted by hand into new bottles before being released.

Emidio Pepe’s daughters and grand-daughters now help run the estate, continuing his traditional farming and winemaking approaches.