di Marzo. Greco di Tufo Riserva 'Vigna Ortale'

Greco di Tufo DOCG Riserva
Grape: Greco

2021 Lemon, quinine and orange peel, salt, and pineapple. A serious, genius of a wine which seems to float just above this earth.  13.5%

2022 A fine white wine with razor sharp precision; an intense, energetic character that has power without weight: kiwi, mango and apricot fruit, a twist of the Riviera.13.5%

Cantine di Marzo producer page

There is a wistful, ethereal quality to the wines from Ortale.  The soils are sparse clays, broken by limestone and sulphur stones, old woodland for a neighbour.  The vines were planted in 2008 and 2012 using a Guyot* training system, at an unfashionably spacious 3000 vines per hectare.  
This, like most, was an unusual vintage: drought in July and August stressed the vines, relief came with rain in September. The crop was smaller than usual, the quality excellent.  Rain during the harvest kept everyone fit, running in and out of the vineyard, the stems were a little swollen, so the bunches were all de-stemmed before a gentle pressing.  Fermentation was in temperature-controlled steel tanks using selected yeasts, the wine stayed on the lees for 9 months, in this time it went through malolactic conversion*.  The finished wine was bottle aged for 2 years in di Marzo’s ancient underground cellars.

Ortale has the highest content of volcanic rock.  In Ferrante’s opinion, Ortale is ‘the dreamer’, a wine with an ethereal quality.

Archive
2019:  An intense, finely textured, bone dry white, that hints at tropical fruit, white peach and hay. This Ortale has such energy, crazy good wine.  13.5%