The Masciarelli Wine Company

"The most popular wine I have ever sold."  That was my sales pitch for Masciarelli Montepulciano d'Abruzzo for what seems like decades before the pricing got a little out of whack.  Now it's back in here (along with the Trebbiano) at a nice $10 retail, which is one reason for this blogpost now.  The other reason is that Friday's tasting includes six other wines from the Masciarelli Wine Company and those are all from the wine importing side of the company.  There are, after all, two legs to the Masciarelli Wine Company trousers; one is the historic estate vineyards in Abruzzo, the other, the import house.

On hand for the event on Friday will be wine broker, Don Zimmerman of Zimcraft Wines Ltd., who actually introduced Masciarelli wines to this market back in the 1980s.  Zimmerman has remained active with the company through the years and even now makes regular business excursions to corporate headquarters in Weymouth, Massachusetts.  With that kind of historic reference on hand we should all learn how a small family-owned vineyard in Abruzzo thirty years ago could develop into the million case annual sales juggernaut it is today.

From their website I learned a couple of interesting factoids about each branch of the company:

     1.  Masciarelli is now the largest wine producer in Abruzzo with the Montepulciano accounting for the majority of that production.  Not satisfied with that stature, Masciarelli has moved into the undeveloped and much envied mountainous L'Aquila province in northern Abruzzo where they are  planting Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes which should yield a very special Italian red blend.

     2.  The import division, which began in 1987 with just French and Italian wines, now sells wines from five continents including production from both California and Oregon.  They are in twenty-seven states using thirty-one distributors including two in Atlanta.  Along with wines, the Masciarelli Wine Company imports liqueurs, Cognac, and olive oil!

Please join us Friday between 5 and 8pm for the tasting and become a follower of the blog before this thing becomes too popular and you can't get in!