Il Faggio

Il Faggio is made for Liberty Wines by Alana McGettigan, a colleague of Matt Thomson, at one of the best co-operatives in the northern Abruzzo. The aim is to capture the power and intensity of the grape together with a lift and freshness seldom found in wine from the region. The name comes from the beech trees that proliferate here, particularly in the Abruzzo national park.

Abruzzo is the most mountainous region in Italy, and that is the key to it. The Apennines run down its spine and the Adriatic laps its eastern edge, so vineyards sit between snowfields and sea. Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, the region's red grape and no relation to the Tuscan town of the same name, ripens to deep colour and soft tannin, and the local risk is not underripeness but heaviness. Altitude and the mountain-to-coast breeze are what keep it fresh.

Working through a co-operative gives access to a wide spread of growers and old plantings, which a single small estate could not match, while the winemaking decisions stay in one pair of hands. The wines are fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel and see little or no new oak, so the fruit reads clearly.