Ortona DOC

A single-commune denomination on the Abruzzese coast, covering the territory of Ortona in the province of Chieti. It is among the youngest DOCs in Italy, and it sits at the centre of Abruzzo’s wine administration — the regional Consorzio Tutela Vini d’Abruzzo has its offices in the town, at Palazzo Corvo.

The Terroir The registered file describes the orography of Ortona as wide hills descending towards the Adriatic, together with the presence of the Maiella massif; that conformation, it says, encourages good ventilation which, combined with excellent vineyard exposure, good drainage and a temperate climate, gives the vine optimal conditions to produce quality and typical fruit. Ortona is one of very few places in Abruzzo where sea and high mountain are both within twenty kilometres of the vineyard, and the wines carry the salinity that implies.

Grape Varieties The permitted list runs to several dozen names, which tells you the denomination was written to be inclusive. In practice it rests on Trebbiano in its Abruzzese and Toscano forms for the white — the file describes an Ortona bianco that is straw-yellow, delicately fruity, dry, velvety and sapido — and on Montepulciano for the red. Pecorino, Passerina, Cococciola and Montonico Bianco all appear on the list, and they are the more interesting half of it.

The Critical Take A permitted-variety list this long is usually a warning sign, and it is here: Ortona DOC has no defining wine, and a name means little when it can be applied to almost anything. What the zone genuinely has is good coastal ground and a real tradition of white wine, and the argument for it stands or falls on Trebbiano Abruzzese — not the workhorse Toscano, but the true Abruzzese variety, which in the right hands makes one of the best and most underrated whites in Italy. Bottles that say so are worth buying; the rest are anonymous.

The Port and the War Ortona was a shipping port for bulk Abruzzese wine long before it was a denomination, and its harbour is the reason the trade concentrated here. It also explains the thinness of the historical record: in December 1943 Ortona was destroyed almost completely in a month of street fighting between Canadian and German troops, and the town, its archives and its cellars were rebuilt from very little afterwards.

At the Table Adriatic cooking: brodetto, grilled fish, scapece, and fried seafood. The white at 10–12°C is the point of the denomination; the Montepulciano at 16–17°C handles lamb and the inland dishes.

Benchmark Producers Dora Sarchese, and the town’s historic cooperative, which accounts for most of what is bottled under the name.