Rosso Piceno, Tenute Pieralisi 2019

The Monte Schiavo cantina sits on a large hill just outside the town of Jesi on Italy’s Adriatic coast. It is owned by the Pieralisi Group, which is a world leader in producing machinery for olive-oil production along with many other interests – it owns Ancona airport and a large hotel and supports the national basketball team!

The family has been cultivating vines since the 1960s (it now has over 100ha under vine), but it only bought La Vite Monte Schiavo outright in 1994 – prior to that, it had been a co-operative, of which the family owned the largest part. This year marked a big change for the company, as the Pieralisi family worked tirelessly to improve quality and invest in state-of-the-art equipment in the winery.

Monte Schiavo has an enviable reputation, in particular for verdicchio, the most famous DOC of the Marche region, and one of the most distinctive and characterful of Italian whites. Monte Schiavo produces verdicchio in all forms, including the remarkable, ageworthy La Giuncare, as well as a spumante sparkling wine, and a sweet passito wine. The winemaker is now Simone Schiaffino and they have had viticultural advice since 2015 from the experienced Carlo Ferrini, who advises Brolio and Fonterutoli in Chianti Classico too. For the last three years Monteschiavo has been preparing for organic cultivation and will be certified from the 2019 vintage.

It is an impeccable source of The Society’s Verdicchio, which comes from the fruit of a single vineyard, Coste del Molino. As with all verdicchio, the name of the wine is also the name of the grape variety from which it is made, a derivative of the word ‘verde’ (green) which aptly describes the glints visible in the glass. Grapes are hand picked before undergoing temperature-controlled fermentation to retain their natural aromas and flavours.

In a break with tradition, The Society’s bottling comes not in the curvaceous amphora which helped verdicchio makes its mark in trattorie throughout Britain, but in a simple, lower-key Burgundy bottle.