Winemaker Notes
You fall in love with this wine by just looking at it: of a brilliant color, it is dressed in shining gold. Nice intensity with an interesting nose of ripe and tropical fruits, sweet notes of honey, linden, spicy and citrus fruit notes, licorice root and almonds. It is a very well-balanced wine in the mouth, a full-bodied wine with high alcohol content but at the same time still fresh and strongly sapid. Even a more unique wine because of its strongly persistent smell and taste with an iodate finish. It is a simply fascinating and persuasively charming wine.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine & Spirits
The Sartarelli family works exclusively with verdicchio and makes versions that are still, sparkling and sweet. Balciana is perhaps their most singular wine, made from grapes that hang on the vines into November, coming in at a high sugar content that translates into a wine with 15.5 percent alcohol when fermented dry. The 2015 balances that power with intense flavors of dried pineapple and green olive, fennel and grilled nuts. The firm, phenolic texture relaxes with exposure to air, revealing a cooling mineral tone that helps refresh the wine. It calls for robust dishes like seared fois gras or pork crépinettes.
-
Wine Spectator
Rich with hints of butterscotch and smoke, this lightly fleshy white frames flavors of baked apple and spice with enough soft acidity for balance. Medium-bodied, with a lingering, creamy finish of toast and citronella. Drink now through 2021.
One of central Italy’s classic white grapes, Verdicchio thrives in two distinct zones of the Marche. The best vineyards of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi adorn hillsides a mere 20 miles from the Adriatic Sea. The vineyards of the smaller, more inland Verdicchio di Matelica, are at higher elevation. Somm Secret—Recent genetic discoveries have proven that the Verdicchio grape is identical to Trebbiano di Soave, Trebbiano di Lugana and Trebbiano Veltenesi.
Stretching along Italy’s eastern coast with neighbors, Umbria to its west and Abruzzo to its south, Marche is a region with a varying climate from north to south. Its coastal plains roll into hills that become the Apennine Mountains, which run the length of the country. The Marche's best red wines come from the grapes, Montepulciano and Sangiovese; the local Verdicchio makes refreshing, crisp and light whites.