From the atlas
Chiusa Grande
At A Glance
- Producer: Azienda Agricola Chiusa Grande di Franco d'Eusanio
- Location: Nocciano, Pescara Province, Abruzzo, Italy
- Founded: 1991
- Vineyards: 60 hectares, organically farmed
- Key grapes: Montepulciano, Pinot Grigio
- Flagship: Perla Nera (100% Montepulciano)
- Distribution: 25 countries
The Producer
Franco D'Eusanio was an agronomist before he was a winemaker, and that sequence matters. When he acquired land outside the village of Nocciano in Pescara Province in 1991, his instinct was to read the ground before filling the cellar. He farmed the 60 hectares organically from the start, not as a later certification project but as the original position of someone trained to understand soil before yield. The first wine did not leave the estate until 1996, five years after the vines went in.
Three decades on, Franco leads the estate alongside his children Ilaria and Rocco. The wines sell to 25 countries. The flagship is Perla Nera, a 100% Montepulciano aged 18 months in barriques. The family calls the founding orientation Vinosophia, a phrase they use to connect the agronomist's original logic to the bottles they make today.
Place
Nocciano sits in the hilly country of Pescara Province, in the part of Abruzzo where the land rises between the Pescara and Nora river valleys. The terrain is rolling and elevated enough to cool the growing season, which is why Montepulciano, a grape that can turn thick and overripe on flat, hot ground, retains acidity and aromatic lift here. The hills channel air movement, and the two river corridors mark the lower boundaries of the estate's planting zone. Abruzzo as a region runs from the Apennine spine down to the Adriatic coast; Nocciano is in the interior, away from the coastal plain where temperatures are higher and Montepulciano tends toward a heavier, more extracted style.
Soil And Site
The packet does not confirm specific soil composition for the Nocciano parcels. What the sources confirm is 60 hectares of organically farmed vines across hilly terrain between two river valleys, with farming managed under the practices the estate is bringing toward European Organic and AIAB Guarantee certification. Franco D'Eusanio's agronomic background means vineyard decisions, not cellar decisions, came first.
Story
Franco D'Eusanio did not enter wine by buying an estate or inheriting a name. He acquired land and began farming it as an agronomist would: patiently, with the vineyard as the primary object of attention. The organic commitment predates commercial pressure to adopt it. In 1991 there was no marketing advantage to farming without synthetic inputs in Abruzzo. D'Eusanio did it because his training told him the soil mattered more than the shortcut.
The five-year gap before the first release in 1996 is the clearest measure of that priority. Where many estates release a wine in the second or third year to generate cash, Chiusa Grande waited until the vineyards were where D'Eusanio wanted them. The range that followed was built around Montepulciano, the grape that defines quality in this part of Abruzzo, with Perla Nera eventually emerging as the cellar's most ambitious expression: full oak ageing, extended bottle rest, a wine meant to show what the grape and the hill can do together over time.
Ilaria and Rocco D'Eusanio are now part of the management, carrying the estate into a third generation of the family's work on the same land.
Vineyards And Cellar
The 60 hectares are farmed organically, with the estate working toward formal European Organic and AIAB Guarantee certification. Organic viticulture in a warm continental climate like inland Abruzzo requires careful canopy management to prevent disease pressure; the commitment to it across 60 hectares is a logistical choice as much as a philosophical one, and it shapes the fruit character of the wines: cleaner skins, less residual chemical influence, and a tendency toward natural acidity rather than corrected freshness.
In the cellar, Perla Nera receives 18 months in barriques followed by 6 months in bottle before release. That ageing programme integrates oak into the wine's fruit over time, softening the Montepulciano tannins and adding the chocolate and spice character the grape absorbs well from new wood. The entry-level Montepulciano and the Pinot Grigio are handled more simply.
Wines
The range at Chiusa Grande is straightforward in its architecture. Montepulciano is the primary grape and the range's backbone. The entry-level Montepulciano is built for early drinking: intense, fruity, with maraschino cherry on the nose and a spicy mid-palate of liquorice and vanilla that sits alongside a balanced, rounded body and good length. It is a direct expression of the grape with no heavy cellar intervention.
The Pinot Grigio moves in a different direction. The nose is aromatic and fresh, with pear and green apple leading, then acacia flower and honeycomb softening the fruit. It is a wine for the table rather than for ageing, broad and textured rather than sharp and mineral.
Perla Nera is the range's top expression. One hundred per cent Montepulciano at 14% ABV, aged 18 months in barriques and 6 months in bottle, it carries the full weight of what oak ageing does to this grape: ripe dark fruit, chocolate, black pepper, and soft, well-integrated tannins. It is noticeably more concentrated and structured than the estate Montepulciano, with a longer finish and greater cellar potential.
In The Glass
The Montepulciano from Chiusa Grande opens with maraschino cherry and red fruit, clear and direct, then spice takes over in the mouth: liquorice and vanilla from the grape's natural character and a touch of wood ageing. The body is round and full without being heavy, with acidity holding the fruit and a finish that has real persistence. It drinks comfortably young.
Perla Nera is a different register. The nose shows ripe dark plum and cherry beneath a layer of chocolate and black pepper. In the mouth the barriques are present but absorbed: the tannins are soft from the 18 months of oak contact, the fruit is dense without being jammy, and the finish carries the pepper note a long way. At 14% ABV it has the weight to demand food, and the fruit concentration to reward a few years of cellaring.
The Pinot Grigio is bright and aromatic from the first pour, pear and green apple rising cleanly, with acacia flower and honeycomb adding a slightly waxy, textured quality in the mouth. It finishes fresh, with just enough weight to accompany richer dishes.
A Bottle To Understand It
Perla Nera is the bottle to open first. It is 100% Montepulciano from the Nocciano parcels, aged 18 months in barriques and 6 months in bottle before release. In the glass it shows ripe dark fruit, chocolate, and black pepper on the nose, then soft, well-integrated tannins and a long, spiced finish. The oak is present and deliberate but does not override the grape. It shows what an agronomist's patience produces: a wine that could have been released years earlier and wasn't, because the vineyard and the cellar programme both needed time to arrive at this weight and coherence.
Anecdote
Franco D'Eusanio acquired the Nocciano land in 1991 with an agronomist's CV and no cellar of his own. He planted, he farmed organically from the first season, and then he waited. Five years passed before Chiusa Grande released a bottle: 1996 was the first vintage. At a time when Abruzzo was not a region where patience was rewarded commercially, that decision to hold back was not a calculated marketing move. It was an agronomist's refusal to let the cellar run ahead of the vineyard. The family named the disposition Vinosophia, a word that appears on the estate's materials today as a way of stitching together the 1991 purchase, the five-year silence, and every harvest since.
Final Word
Chiusa Grande is an estate that began with soil rather than reputation and has spent three decades letting the vineyards justify the patience. The agronomist's founding logic, the organic farming commitment, and the long ageing programme behind Perla Nera all point the same way: a producer that measures decisions by what happens in the glass, not by what is easiest in a given vintage. The children are in management now, and the Nocciano land keeps producing.
Sources
- https://chiusagrande.com/en/page/azienda/
- https://chiusagrande.com/en/page/famiglia/
- https://sustainablewinesolutions.co.uk/meet-the-maker/chiusa-grande
- https://chiusagrande.com/en/products/perla-nera/