Marche Bianco IGT
Grape Verdicchio

This is no aperitivo, it needs food to flatter the full complex fruit. It is an enticing amalgam of caramelised lemon, wax and dried fruit, deep citrus and herb.
Stefano recommends cheeses or liver based dishes, I would go for a seafood risotto, maybe a fish tagine.

Dry white wines made using ‘appassimento’ are extremely rare, this could be the only one made from Verdicchio. This is a wine Stefano only makes in the most suitable years, it has made cameo appearances over the last two decades and is now a finely honed wine. The grapes are picked a little earlier than the main crop when the acidity is a little higher, sugars lower and skins thicker, the optimum state for the drying (appassimento) process. Each hand picked bunch is tied to a wire line inside a specially constructed barn, it is a natural process and the windows are the only temperature/ humidity control. The grapes hang for 4 months and are pressed around Christmas time, the raisoned grapes being a reduction of their original self, there may be some botrytis, it is not encouraged, but not chemically avoided either.
The pressed grapes are fermented in temperature controlled steel tanks and the wine is transferred to mainly used barriques (225 litre French oak barrels) for 12 months, where it goes through the malolactic fermentation. The wine is then moved into used tonneaux (500 litre French oak barrels) for another year before being bottled.