Conero (Italy)
The lonely peak of Monte Conero, which towers over the city of Ancona, probably owes its name to the Greek term for the strawberry tree or berry twigs, which in large numbers covers the slopes of this picturesque headland.
The geological origin of this hill (show. 572 m.n.p.m.) has developed many hypotheses. For some, the hill is the last surviving part of ancient Adria, land, which once stretched all the way to Dalmatia, but so is Atlantis, plunged beneath the sea and disappeared. For others, it is the result of local tectonic movements. Whether, which of these hypotheses is true, one thing remains certain: even in very distant times, viticulture developed on the slopes of the hill.
The first mention of wines from the vicinity of Ancona was made by Pliny the Elder in his book "Historia Naturalis". The author mentions numerous types of wines produced at that time in today's Italy, also mentions wines from the vicinity of Ancona, which he describes as one of the most appreciated in the entire Adriatic Sea. His nephew Pliny the Younger also refers to the same thread, after which a collection of letters has survived (Letters), considered a treasury of knowledge about life in Rome during the times of the Empire.
Rosso Conero red wine appeared more than once in later literature. One of the most valuable testimonies on this subject is undoubtedly to be found in the book from 1596 year, in which the author Andrea Bacci, personal physician of Pope Sixtus V and professor of botany at the University of Rome, referring to the faults referred to by Pliny "pretuziani” (Pretuzi are old Vietnamese people belonging to the Sabelian tribes, which were united by the Roman Emperor Augustus with the Picenes and tribes inhabiting today's Marche region), refers unequivocally to the wine of Conero. Undoubtedly to the famous wine produced in this area, and in particular, Rosso Conero alluded in his less known collection of thoughts on wine and is an intoxication by the outstanding nineteenth-century poet Giacomo Leopardi, associated from birth with the Marche region.
Wine, which in 1967 obtained the right to use the DOC appeal, It is produced mainly from a Montepulciano strain of not fully known origin. The cultivation of this grape variety is concentrated in central and southern Italy, especially in the regions of Marche and Abruzzo. Despite the similarity of the name to the town in Tuscany, The grapevine is fundamentally different from the grape used to produce the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano wine.