Lungarotti

Umbria’s premier winery, the Lungarotti Winery, looms large in this small and beautiful region bordering Tuscany. Umbrian wines are now widely recognized for their high quality, many estates on a par with high-end Tuscan estates. Still, Lungarotti is credited with earning the region its initial fame, thanks to its pioneering wines and an insatiable drive to promote Umbrian wine and culture. They were also innovators in wine tourism in Italy, founding a wine museum. Visiting this pioneering winery on an Umbria & Le Marche Wine Tour, organized by Cellar Tours.

Although wine has been made in Umbria for untold centuries, under the hand of the late Giorgio Lungarotti, the earthy Sangiovese blends that Umbrian wines reached a worldwide audience in modern times. Thanks to the winery’s prestige, the pretty little wine hamlet of Torgiano that – apart from Montefalco – has become Umbria’s de-facto wine capital and commercial center, with the marvelous wine museum and a host of wine-focused businesses (many owned or begun by the Lungarotti family) that make the town a natural stop on any wine tour of Italy.

While Lungarotti produces a wide variety of wines (nearly two dozen), liquors, and other gourmet products, the firm is best known for three iconic wines: San Giorgio, Rubesco (Umbria’s first DOC-recognized wine), and Rubesco Vigna Monticchio (a single-vineyard Rubesco Riserva). The former is a Sangiovese-Cabernet blend, while the latter two are Sangiovese-Canaiolo blends, but all undergo a long bottle aging process before being released onto the market. Such long aging times are a Lungarotti trademark, setting the brand’s wines apart from the crowd with their elegant, earthy, even leathery touches. Lugarotti has also gained fame for its white wines, in particular, Chardonnays. The signature white, however, is Torre di Giano, a refreshing Grechetto, and Trebbiano blend.