Sartarelli Balciana Verdicchio 2015
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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.
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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.
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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.
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2020- Vinous
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Robert
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Wine &
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Sartarelli is one of the few Italian wineries which focuses exclusively on a single varietal production, in this case Verdicchio. Our winery and offices are built around our century-old country house at 350 meters above sea level. The Sartarelli winery, with its extension of 55 hectares of vineyards and 6 hectares of olive groves with 2,300 trees, is situated in Poggio San Marcello, a small precious gem surrounded by the beautiful rolling hills of the Marche region. We are on the left of the Esino River, which is the traditional area where the wine D.O.C. Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico is produced.
Here we can find some of the most historically important Verdicchio producing districts, such as Coste del Molino, Tralivio and Balciana. It is here where our oldest vineyards gently line the distinctive hill slopes of the area. Our roots, the values in which we believe and our emotional attachments are here. This is the land where we have been brought up, where our winery and our family have grown.
A product of excellence is obtained by respecting the grape bunches and the care with which they are transformed. Respect and care are two values on which Sartarelli’s philosophy is based. This is why we have always run the vineyards in total respect of the environment. We are firmly convinced that the careful selection and an accurate maturation of the grapes lead to a superior quality wine.
The characteristics of our wines are enhanced by exclusively using the Verdicchio cultivar, a fine indigenous grape variety. This grape variety further improves the value of the final product by intensifying its typical characteristics. But that is not all, in order to characterize our wines further, we have been selecting some special antique clones of Verdicchio from our old vineyards so as to obtain an even more refined wine which, whilst maintaining its traditional varietal taste, is able to express extraordinary aromatic nuances.
Sartarelli regularly wins International Awards and distinctions for their wines, most recently awarded first place and in the Verdicchio category with 97 points for Balciana 2017 by Decanter Magazine.
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.