Colli Aprutini IGT is an Italian wine designation from the province of Teramo in central Abruzzo. The name "Aprutini" refers precisely to the Teramo area, and the designation is used by producers here for wines that fall outside the local DOC and DOCG rules. IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) is the freer level below DOC and DOCG. Here the same strict requirements for grape composition, ageing or alcohol do not apply, and this gives producers a more open framework to work within.
Under Colli Aprutini IGT both white, red and rosato are made in several styles, and the designation is used first and foremost for dry wines. Among the permitted grapes you will find local classics such as Montepulciano, Pecorino, Passerina and Trebbiano, but also international varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. If a producer wishes to make a varietal wine, that is, a wine named after a single grape, it must contain at least 85 percent of the variety in question.
It is this flexibility that makes the designation interesting. Where the tightly regulated classifications follow a fixed template, a producer under Colli Aprutini IGT can to a greater extent work with their own expression, whether it is a fruit-driven red based on Montepulciano, a fresh white based on Trebbiano or Pecorino, or an experiment with international grapes.
At Copenhagen Wine we see Colli Aprutini IGT as a fine entry point to Abruzzo, if you fancy exploring the area beyond the best-known DOC names. If you want to put the wines in a larger context, you can delve into our selection from the rest of Italy, where the same grapes appear under a wide range of other designations.