Tenimenti Grieco

Tenimenti Grieco farm in Molise, the second-smallest region in Italy and easily the least known. It sits between Abruzzo and Puglia on the Adriatic, and for most of its history its wine went into other people's blends rather than into bottles of its own.

The estate's purpose is Tintilia. The variety is native to Molise and grown essentially nowhere else, and it very nearly disappeared: plantings collapsed after the war as growers replaced it with higher-yielding varieties, and by the 1990s only scattered old vines remained. Its name probably comes from the Spanish tinto, and it arrived under Bourbon rule. It gives a deeply coloured, spicy red with real acidity, and it only performs above about 200 metres, which is where the estate's vineyards sit.

Alongside it they work Falanghina, Montepulciano and Aglianico under the Biferno appellation, named after the river. Molise remains one of the best-value corners of Italy precisely because so few people can place it on a map.