Essential references: World Atlas of Wine Oxford Companion to Wine
Give the dads in your life the gift of an annual membership
Home Tasting articles
Italy Sangiovese Umbria vertical

Lungarotti's Rubesco Vigna Monticchio Riserva, 1969–2019

Image
Walter Speller
Monday 9 June 2025 • 4 min read
Chiara Lungarotti in the Monticchio vineyard

Sangiovese – but not as we know it. A vertical tasting of a revolutionary Umbrian wine. Above, Chiara Lungarotti in the Monticchio vineyard.

A couple of years ago I received a sample of Rubesco Vigna Monticchio, once the flagship wine of Umbria and its first ever single-vineyard red wine. It was conceived by Giorgio Lungarotti in the early 1960s, at a time that very little bottled or high-quality wines came from this region. Soon Vigna Monticchio became one of Italy’s most revered wines and achieved cult status.

That is no exaggeration, evidenced by the fact that in 1968 the DOC Torgiano...