Città del Vino
Città del Vino in Abruzzo
8 towns
Abruzzo has 8 Città del Vino communes in our index. They cluster in the Chieti, Pescara, and L'Aquila provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Città Sant'Angelo, Ofena, and Tocco da Casauria. 5 more towns carry the mark alongside them.

Città Sant'Angelo
Province: Pescara · 320 m
A hilltop borgo at 320 meters between the Vestina hills and the Adriatic, named for the Archangel and known since 1352 as a Collegiata seat.

Ofena
Province: L'Aquila · 531 m
A 531-meter Vestian basin called the Forno d'Abruzzo, sealed by the Gran Sasso wall, where Montepulciano ripens on what may be the oldest of its slopes.

Tocco da Casauria
Province: Pescara · 356 m
A 356-meter hill town between the Pescara river and the Maiella, built around a Carolingian abbey and an herb liqueur called Centerba.

Controguerra
Province: Teramo · 267 m
A 267-meter Val Vibrata wine village, seat of the Controguerra DOC since 1996, and a founding Cittaslow of the Teramo hills.

Crecchio
Province: Chieti · 209 m
A 209-meter hill town between the Adriatic and the Maiella, capital of Italy for one night in 1943 when the king slept in its castle.

Loreto Aprutino
Province: Pescara · 290 m
A hilltop town at 290 meters in the Aprutino olive country, with a fourteenth-century Judgment fresco and a Castelli majolica collection.

Miglianico
Province: Chieti · 125 m
A wine hill town at 125 meters between Pescara and the Adriatic, with the sanctuary of San Pantaleone above an unbroken horizon of vineyards.

Rocca San Giovanni
Province: Chieti · 155 m
A walled hill town at 155 meters on the Costa dei Trabocchi, founded around 1060 by an abbot guarding the Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere.
Subscribe — free
Get the best guides on hidden Italian towns.
One letter on Sundays. The week’s town, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.
Substack sends a confirmation link to your inbox. The signup finishes when it’s clicked.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover

Putignano
Province: Bari
Europe's longest-running carnival — Putignano Carnevale has run continuously since 1394, with 631 years of cartapesta papier-mâché floats, a 26,000-resident Murgia town on the Bari–Lecce plateau, and the Grotta del Trullo karst cave inside the centro.

Pistoia
Province: Pistoia
Italy's nursery capital and the medieval Tuscan rival that gave its name to the pistol — a quietly extraordinary centro storico of zebra-striped Romanesque churches, Andrea della Robbia's polychrome frieze on the Ospedale del Ceppo, and Italy's Capital of Culture 2017, all 30 minutes from Florence by train.

Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.

Caldes
Province: Trento
A scattered Val di Sole commune on the Noce, six hamlets gathered around a thirteenth-century tower-house castle that once belonged to the Thun family.

Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.
