Chiara Pepe is the third-generation winemaker at Emidio Pepe in Abruzzo, stewarding one of Italy’s most uncompromising estates. While retaining the estate’s five non-negotiable pillars (pergola training, concrete fermentation, spontaneous yeast, no filtration, long ageing), she has adapted viticulture and winemaking to climate change through shade management, delayed phenolic ripening, and precision sulphur use. The result is freshness, longevity, and distinct vineyard expression in a warming climate.

When Emidio Pepe released his first vintage in 1964, few believed Montepulciano d’Abruzzo could produce one of Italy’s great red wines. The region’s growers sold to cooperatives. The wine was vin de soif at best. One village wag joked that Emidio was building castles in the sky. Sixty years later, the stacked bottles in the Pepe cellar make the reference for him.

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