The Colline Teramane are the hills of the province of Teramo, closed to the west by the bulk of the Gran Sasso and the Monti della Laga and open to the east onto the Adriatic. In 2003 they were granted Abruzzo's first DOCG, for Montepulciano alone: it demands at least 90 per cent of the grape — ten points more than the regional DOC — and longer ageing, two years before release and three for the Riserva.
The difference is not only bureaucratic. Mountains behind and sea in front produce a night-time temperature swing the coastal plain does not have: the grapes ripen more slowly, and the wines arrive with sharper acidity and finer tannin than Montepulciano usually gives. Anyone who knows only the broad, soft version of the DOC finds something narrower and more vertical here.
One clarification the labels make necessary: the DOCG is red only. The name Colline Teramane nevertheless appears on whites and rosés from the same hills — Trebbiano, Pecorino, Cerasuolo — which belong to other appellations. This page gathers the whole zone, because that is how you meet it on the shelf, but the DOCG in the strict sense is the Montepulciano.
It remains a small appellation: its output is a fraction of the regional DOC's and it turns up far less often on the shelf. The estates that bottle it are largely concentrated in a handful of villages in the province.
