Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, potentially majestic and certainly noble red wine based on sangiovese, called Prugnolo Gentile here, made exclusively in the township of Montepulciano 120 km/75 miles south east of Florence in the hills of tuscany in central Italy. Vino Nobile has an illustrious history, having been lauded as a ‘perfect wine’ by the cellarmaster of Pope Paul III in 1549, by Francesco Redi in his ‘Bacchus in Toscana’ of 1685 (he called it ‘the king of wines’), while the first record of the official name dates from 1787 when it was listed in the expense accounts of Giovan Filippo Neri for a trip to Siena. After the introduction of the doc in 1966, from 1970 and 2011, the total vineyard rose from less than 150 ha/370 acres in 1970 to 1,300 ha in 2011, while the number of producers bottling their own wine increased from seven or eight to 230.
