from Holiday Gift Guide 2018: 11 Bottles Of Hard-To-Find Italian Native Wine Grapes
forbes.com
by Susan H. Gordon
5. Verdicchio
Bisci Verdicchio di Matelica Vigneto Fogliano 2015, $21.95
One of Italy’s great whites: piercing acidity sets the stage for long-aging dry wines, bright luscious sweet ones, and a few sharp sparklings, too. Its home is two places in northern Le Marche in central Italy: Verdicchio di Castelli di Jesi is more readily available (go pioneer Garofoli or biodynamic Pievalta) and offers richer, Adriatic-sea-influenced takes; Verdicchio di Matelica, nearby but profile-shiftingly blocked from the sea by the Sibillini mountains and rising from a valley whose floor alone is 350 meters up, is smaller, less imported, more austere mountain-influenced, Bisci is this place’s classic maker, the wine has a proud bitter note and enriching flintiness along with the grape’s typical creamy lemon, citron, almond.
