Corte Carista Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2020

News that Aldi had employed Alberto Antonini, one of Italy’s leading wine consultants, to make a $10 Chianti Superiore exclusively for its Australian stores made waves back in 2018. Antonini has now added a $12 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2020 to the Aldi wine family. He captures the wine’s Italian heart well, one that offers both savoury notes and some amaro-style bitterness. Immediately offers up earth and savoury aromas of smokehouse charcuterie, black fruits, bramble, black olive and licorice. Brings the grape, one high in natural acidity and tannin, into focus on the palate which is dressed tight and firm. Loads of ripe black fruits, some meaty reduction, smoky, woodsy notes, cardamon and bitter herbs are laid out across a palate with a slight drying out of tannins before finishing with an Italian flourish of astringency and amaro bitters.

Exclusive to Aldi stores.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic