The Abbey of 715, the Holy Door & the Wines That Came Home
On the pilgrim road to the Holy Land, in the Vomano valley between the Gran Sasso and the Adriatic, a Benedictine abbey has stood since 715 — sheltering crusaders, surviving emperors and Napoleon, kept for a century and a half by a family of scholars. In 2011, Paolo Savini de Strasser ended the silence in its ancient cellars: the modern wine project of Abbazia di Propezzano was born, bottling the indigenous varieties that grew opposite the church's Romanesque façade — Montepulciano, Trebbiano, Passerina and Pecorino — in one of the first terroirs ever recognised in Teramo.
Origin — 715, the Pilgrims & the Savini Scholars
Some wine estates have history. Abbazia di Propezzano has thirteen centuries of it. Tradition holds that on 10 May 715, the Virgin appeared — Santa Maria propitiating miseries — to three German pilgrims at this spot in the Vomano valley, near the hill town of Morro d'Oro. The church they raised was consecrated by Pope Gregory II, and from the eighth century the complex served as a shelter for pilgrims and crusaders on their way to embark for the Holy Land — eventually becoming a Benedictine abbey, a powerful stronghold and a rich working farm at the very northern border of the Kingdom of Sicily.
The abbey's sculpted portal — the so-called "Holy Door," completed around 1315 — still greets visitors today, and the site was granted indulgences by papal decree in the late Middle Ages. But empires turn: in the early nineteenth century, during Napoleon's Kingdom of Naples, the Benedictine order was suppressed and the estate passed first to the Acquaviva dukes, then to the de' Sterlich marquises. Around 1870, it was sold to the Savini family — scholars and wool merchants from Teramo who, alongside their treatises on the language, history and culture of the region, restored and preserved the abbey's architectural heritage while running its agricultural lands.
The Savini kept the estate for generations — and then, in 2011, the modern chapter began. Paolo Savini de Strasser, heir to the family, took on the abbey and its surrounding lands with an eye toward reestablishing the ancient cellars. He started small: just a portion of the vineyards, worked with an agronomist, aiming to produce traditional wines from indigenous varieties. In 2012, the first two wines were bottled — Passerina and Pecorino, whites, deliberately: the revival of this historic terroir began not with the region's famous red, but with the ancient white varieties that had grown around the abbey for centuries.
Alongside Paolo stands his partner Cristina, who has done what centuries of monks and marquises never quite did: she has brought the abbey fully to life — with warm décor, music, and food pairings that make the wines sing, and tastings laid out inside the Romanesque complex itself. From 2026, guests can even sleep within the abbey walls, in renovated guest rooms above the cellars. The pilgrim shelter is sheltering travellers again — thirteen hundred years on.
The Place — The Vomano Valley, the Seven Abbeys & 900 Historic Olives
The abbey sits at the northern border of what was once the Kingdom of Sicily, where the land narrows between the Gran Sasso massif and the Adriatic Sea — a location that witnessed alternating conquests and remarkable trade. This is the Colline Teramane DOCG zone, Abruzzo's most prestigious appellation for Montepulciano, and Propezzano was recognised as one of the first terroirs to represent the wine of the Teramo area — long before the DOCG even existed. The estate comprises 80 hectares, of which about 16.5–17 are vineyards, with the rest given to grasslands, cereals — and 900 historical olive trees of ancient cultivars.
The Valley of Seven Abbeys
Seven abbeys once lined the Vomano valley along ancient transumanza — the great sheep-migration routes between the mountains and the sea — literally defending the northern border of southern Italy. Propezzano was the anchor of this sacred, strategic corridor: a farm, a fortress and a refuge in one. The landscape the vines grow in today — hills narrowing between Gran Sasso's glacial peaks and the Adriatic breeze — is the same landscape that made the valley worth defending for a millennium.
900 Historic Olive Trees
Among the estate's treasures are 900 historical olive trees of three ancient local cultivars — Tortiglione, Cucco and Dritta Pescarese — survivors of the olive cultures that once filled these hills. Alongside them: grasslands and cereal fields, and vineyards of Montepulciano, Trebbiano, Passerina and Pecorino planted opposite the church's façade, along the old paving road the pilgrims walked. Agronomic choices here are made to respect the environment and the traditions of the area, preserving the balance of the nature around the abbey.
A Terroir Recognised Before the DOCG
Long before Colline Teramane won its DOCG, the wines of Propezzano were cited among the first terroirs to represent Teramo's wine — a historical recognition that the modern project consciously inherited. The estate's DOC and DOCG bottles are not newcomers to a famous zone; they are the revival of the zone's original reference point, made where the appellation's story effectively began.
Eighty Hectares, One Living Abbey
The estate is a single agricultural organism of 80 hectares — vines, olives, cereals and grassland woven around the Romanesque complex. Biodiversity here is not a program; it is the continuation of the abbey's original, thousand-year-old farm model: everything the Benedictines needed, grown within walking distance of the cloister. The modern wines sit inside that continuity — the farm feeding the abbey, as it has since the eighth century.
Winemaking — The Ancient Cellars & the Indigenous Revival
The modern wine project was conceived with a simple, demanding brief: reestablish the ancient cellars and produce traditional wines from indigenous varieties — nothing more, nothing less. The agronomic and technical choices respect the environment and the tradition of the area, preserving the balance of the nature around the abbey and keeping the quality of the yield high.
It is significant that the first two wines were whites — Passerina and Pecorino — before any red was bottled. The revival began with the varieties most at risk of being forgotten, grown in the vineyards opposite the church façade, in the same soils where they had always grown. The reds followed naturally: Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Colline Teramane DOCG from the estate's hillside vineyards, and a Cerasuolo made with unusual precision.
The Cerasuolo "CAB" shows the house style in miniature: not a saignée, but four hours of skin contact in direct press — a focused, precise vision of Abruzzo's great rosato, clean and fragrant, tasting of strawberries and cherries "exactly like early June." Across the range, the goal is the same: wines that are products of culture and passion — traditional in their varieties, transparent in their making, unmistakably of this valley.
And the setting does half the work of the philosophy. Tastings unfold inside the abbey itself, among stones that have heard a thousand years of footsteps, with Cristina's food pairings and the quiet of the cloister. In an age of purpose-built tasting rooms, Propezzano offers something no architect can design: a cellar that has been a cellar since before the DOCG, before the Kingdom of Italy, before most of Europe's wine regions had names.
The Wines — From the Holy Door to the Colline Teramane DOCG
The range of Abbazia di Propezzano is deliberately traditional: five wines from the indigenous varieties of the Vomano valley — Montepulciano, Trebbiano, Passerina and Pecorino — all from estate vineyards opposite the abbey church. Around 100,000 bottles a year, with the olive oil of the 900 historic trees completing the farm's offering. The labels favour friendly abbreviations — PEC, CAB — that sit a little playfully on bottles made inside a thirteenth-century cloister.
Abbazia di Propezzano Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Colline Teramane DOCG
Red — Morro d'Oro, TeramoThe estate's flagship red — Montepulciano from the Colline Teramane DOCG zone, the most prestigious appellation in Abruzzo, and a terroir Propezzano was cited in before the DOCG existed. Estate-grown on the hills above the abbey, made in the revived ancient cellars. A traditional Colline Teramane: dark-fruited, firm in tannin, with the balsamic, fennel-tinged savouriness of the Teramo hills between the Gran Sasso and the sea. A young estate's wine with an old terroir's soul. Estate-grown. Traditional methods.
Abbazia di Propezzano Trebbiano d'Abruzzo DOC
White — Morro d'Oro, TeramoThe estate's thoughtful Trebbiano — from vines in the vineyards opposite the church façade, raised in the ancient cellars. In a region where Trebbiano is too often an afterthought, the abbey version aims for the variety's higher register: fresh, fragrant, mineral, with the quiet character of a grape that has grown in this valley since long before the abbey's stones were dressed. Estate-grown. Traditional methods.
Abbazia di Propezzano "PEC" Pecorino d'Abruzzo DOC
White — Morro d'Oro, TeramoOne of the first two wines ever bottled at the abbey — 2012, the founding vintage — and still a pillar of the range. PEC brings both freshness and texture compared to the Trebbiano: ripe in a melon-meets-guava way, yet citrus-led and vibrant rather than preserved or heavy. It is Pecorino as the Teramo hills want it: mountain acidity, savoury depth, and a quietly aromatic lift that makes it the natural first glass of any abbey tasting. A founding wine. Estate-grown.
Abbazia di Propezzano "CAB" Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo DOC
Rosato — Morro d'Oro, TeramoThe abbey's rosato — and a statement of method. CAB is not saignée: the Montepulciano gets four hours on the skins in direct press — a short, deliberate maceration that fixes colour and fragrance without tannin. The result is clean and precise: strawberry and cherry, "exactly like early June, right in season" — a focused, modern-vision Cerasuolo within the established DOC, made in a cellar that has seen more Junes than any other in the region. Direct press, 4 hours skin contact.
Abbazia di Propezzano Passerina
White — Morro d'Oro, TeramoThe other founding wine of 2012 — Passerina, the quiet, ancient variety of the Adriatic hills, revived at the abbey from its own old vineyards. Delicate, floral and lightly savory, it is the most fragile and most local of the estate's wines: a variety few outside Abruzzo have met, growing where it has always grown, outside the church's Romanesque façade. To taste it in the abbey cellars is to taste the revival project in its purest form. A founding wine. Extremely local.
The Olive Oil of the 900 Trees
Extra Virgin — Morro d'Oro, TeramoWine is only half the farm. The estate's 900 historical olive trees — Tortiglione, Cucco and Dritta Pescarese — produce an extra virgin olive oil in the same spirit as the wines: from ancient plants, in a historic place, with respect for the environment and the traditions of the area. Tasted alongside the wines at the abbey, it completes a table the Benedictines would have recognised: bread, oil, wine — the three pillars of the monastic farm, thirteen centuries unchanged.
Legacy — Thirteen Centuries of Hospitality, One New Beginning
Abbazia di Propezzano's legacy is, by any measure, the deepest of any estate in this series. Founded in 715 on a Marian apparition to three pilgrims; a shelter for crusaders for half a millennium; a Benedictine stronghold on the Kingdom of Sicily's northern border; granted papal indulgences in the Middle Ages; passed through dukes and marquises; bought in 1870 by the Savini, scholars who preserved its architecture while the modern wine world forgot the site existed. Every era of Abruzzo's long history has left a layer on these stones.
The modern legacy — the one Paolo and Cristina are writing now — is the revival. When the wine project began in 2011, Propezzano was a footnote: a beautiful, silent complex in one of Italy's most famous red-wine zones, making no wine at all. Thirteen years later, it is a working estate again: ~100,000 bottles a year of indigenous varieties only, an olive oil from 900 historic trees, tastings inside the Romanesque complex, and — from 2026 — guest rooms above the cellars. The pilgrim shelter shelters travellers again.
It matters, too, that Propezzano was one of the first terroirs ever recognised in Teramo — cited as a reference for the area's wine long before the Colline Teramane DOCG existed. The modern bottles are therefore not newcomers riding an appellation's fame; they are the return of the appellation's original address. In a region whose renaissance this series has traced — from Pepe's decades of patience to Valentini's silence, Tiberio's struggle, De Fermo's awakening farm and Jasci & Marchesani's forty years of organic — the abbey adds the final dimension: deep time.
From the Holy Door of 1315 to the first Passerina of 2012, from the transumanza routes to the tasting tables, Abbazia di Propezzano reminds us what a wine estate can be when it never forgets what it was: a farm, a refuge, and a place where strangers have been welcomed for thirteen centuries. The stones remember. The cellars are awake. And the pilgrims are arriving again — this time, for the wine.