Red Grape · Umbria
Umbria's one great native red: five hill towns around Montefalco, about 1,000 hectares, and the most tannic wine in Italy, which turns to velvet after a decade.
Sagrantino is Umbria's great red grape, grown in five hill towns around Montefalco and almost nowhere else. It makes inky, bone-dry wines with some of the highest tannin of any grape in the world, plus a sweet passito from dried grapes. Give it ten years and the grip turns to velvet.
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Before you buy
The anchor fact: Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG is 100% Sagrantino and must age at least two and a half years before sale. Montefalco Rosso DOC is mostly Sangiovese with a share of Sagrantino, and is ready years sooner.
Taste · Where it sits
Forget scores out of five. Here’s Sagrantino described against grapes you already know.
Heavier than Aglianico or Nebbiolo, close to Amarone's weight, but bone dry at 14 to 15%.
More grip than Nebbiolo or Aglianico, around double Cabernet Sauvignon by published tests; it needs an hour of air or a decade of bottle.
Medium-high: less than Nebbiolo, more than Primitivo, and it is what stops a 15% wine feeling heavy.
Blackberry and plum with no sweetness at all in the dry wine; only the passito, from dried grapes, is sweet.
Key flavours
The map
Sagrantino is powerfully full, bold, gripping tannin, mapped against other red grapes you can buy. The closer a grape sits, the more its weight and grip resemble Sagrantino.
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Serving guide
Serve at
16-18°C
16 to 18C: warmer and the 15% alcohol burns, colder and the tannin clamps shut.
Decant
1 hours
An hour in a jug is the minimum for a young bottle; past ten years, pour gently off the sediment.
Glass
Bordeaux Glass
The biggest bowl you own: air softens Sagrantino's tannin faster than anything else.
Drink within
4-5 days
Montefalco Rosso from two years old; Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG from five.
Cellar
10-20 years
Ten to twenty years for the DOCG; the passito keeps longer still.
On the table
Start with the home-table matches that made the grape, then browse the full cuisine library.
The Sunday slow-cook
Lamb cooked for hours turns soft and fatty; Sagrantino's tannin grips the fat and the meat smooths the wine, so both end up gentler than they started.
Umbria's own roast
Herb-stuffed roast pork with crackling is the region's feast food; the salt and fat take the edge off the tannin and the fennel in the pork meets the wine's liquorice.
For a wine with ten years on it
Game has the savoury depth to match an aged Sagrantino; the wine's tobacco and earth notes sit inside the stew rather than fighting it.
Aged pecorino, blue for the passito
Hard aged cheese is salty and fatty enough to tame a young Sagrantino; a blue cheese wants the sweet passito, where sugar and tannin meet salt.
Browse every pairing
Buy it · three to start with
A curated trio across the price range, then every Sagrantino on sale in the UK right now.
Entry · everyday
2 retailers
Montefalco
2 retailers
£16.90
£17.79
Why this one: Adanti's Montefalco Rosso is 70% Sangiovese with 15% Sagrantino: the grape's grip in a lighter frame, ready now, for under £18.
The sweet spot
2 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
2 retailers
£20.50
Why this one: Colpetrone's Memoira is 100% Sagrantino with a year in barrique, and the cheapest full DOCG in the shops we track, at about £20.
Special occasion
3 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
3 retailers
£28.90
Why this one: Caprai's Collepiano is the benchmark: 22 months in barrique, blackberry jam, clove and pepper over tannin built for a decade. Around £37.
12 of 36 bottles
3 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
3 retailers
£28.90
2 retailers
Montefalco
2 retailers
£16.90
£17.79
2 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
2 retailers
£19.50
2 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
2 retailers
£20.50
2 retailers
Montefalco
2 retailers
£23.34
2 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
2 retailers
£24.10
2 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
2 retailers
£29.90
2 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
2 retailers
£32.00
2 retailers
Montefalco Sagrantino
2 retailers
£45.92
1 retailer
Montefalco
1 retailer
£14.50
1 retailer
Montefalco
1 retailer
£14.70
1 retailer
Montefalco
1 retailer
£15.40
Denominations
The appellations where Sagrantino plays a starring role.
Where it grows
Italy's landlocked green heart, where Montefalco Sagrantino brings the deepest tannins on the peninsula and Orvieto's tufa cliffs ripen the country's most patient white grapes.
The terroir
Sagrantino grows in five hill towns around Montefalco and almost nowhere else, so the differences are between estates more than places.
Montefalco
The hill town itself and its slopes
The classic DOCG and the Caprai style: the ripest fruit, the most extract and 22 to 24 months in French oak.
Bevagna and Gualdo Cattaneo
The lower towns to the north and west
Adanti's home in Bevagna, aged 28 months in big 30 hl barrels rather than small oak; Colpetrone at Gualdo Cattaneo, a year in barrique.
The rest of Umbria
Tiny plots outside the five towns
Sold as Umbria IGT, often blended. Outside Italy there are only experimental rows in Australia, California and Argentina.
Editorial
Sagrantino has more tannin than almost any grape on earth. Published tests put it above Aglianico and Tannat, and around double Cabernet Sauvignon or Nebbiolo. The berries are small, with very thick blue-black skins, and the wine comes out a violet so dark it is almost black.
One of the most tannic grapes in the world, and it gives a wine so dark a violet it is almost black.
Quattrocalici, the Italian grape atlasIts home is Montefalco in Umbria and four neighbouring hill towns: Bevagna, Gualdo Cattaneo, Giano dell'Umbria and Castel Ritaldi. Plantings grew from about 350 hectares in 2000 to nearly 1,000 by 2010, and that is still roughly the total, shared by around 50 producers. Written records go back to the 1500s, when it was a sweet wine for church feasts. The name probably comes from sacro or sagrestia. Where the vine came from is unknown: Italy's grape register lists no parents and no synonyms.
For centuries it was a passito: grapes dried on racks, then pressed into a sweet, raisiny red much like Recioto. Dry Sagrantino only took over in the 1970s. Montefalco Sagrantino became a DOCG in 1992. It must be 100% Sagrantino and age for at least two and a half years, a year of it in wood, before it can be sold. Montefalco Rosso DOC is the everyday wine of the same towns, mostly Sangiovese with a share of Sagrantino.
The 1990s boom brought a big, oaky, muscular style aimed at export markets. Today most estates are pulling back towards something more austere and closer to the grape. Either way, a young bottle needs an hour in a decanter and something fatty on the table. Ten years in the cellar does what the decanter cannot.
Good to know
Sagrantino tastes of blackberry and plum with liquorice, black pepper, cinnamon and a tobacco, earthy edge. It is bone dry, full-bodied and very tannic when young, at 14 to 15% alcohol. With ten years in bottle the tannin softens and the fruit turns to prune and fig.
It is one of them. Published tests put its tannin above Aglianico and Tannat, and around double Cabernet Sauvignon or Nebbiolo. That is why a young bottle needs an hour in a decanter and rich food.
Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG is 100% Sagrantino, aged at least two and a half years before sale, and built to keep. Montefalco Rosso DOC is mostly Sangiovese with a share of Sagrantino, lighter, cheaper and ready sooner. Adanti's Rosso, for example, is 70% Sangiovese and 15% Sagrantino.
Drink Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG from about five years after the vintage and up to twenty. Montefalco Rosso is ready from two or three years. If you open a young Sagrantino, decant it for an hour.
A sweet red made from Sagrantino grapes dried on racks after picking, the way Recioto della Valpolicella is made. It was the traditional style for centuries and is still made under the Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG. Expect raisin, fig and blueberry with firm tannin behind the sugar.
Arnaldo Caprai is the name most UK shops stock, from Collepiano up to the 25 Anni. Antonelli, Adanti, Colpetrone, Scacciadiavoli and Lungarotti all make good Montefalco Sagrantino at £20 to £35. Paolo Bea is the cult natural-wine producer, harder to find.
Explore by style
Jump to the editorial guide for each style this grape turns up in.
Keep exploring
138 wines
21 denominations
