2003 Marotti Campi "Luzano"

Region: Marche, Italy

Composition: 100% Verdicchio

Background: After a hard weekend of doing little and a day dominated by hangovers and general lethargy, we decided to celebrate Memorial Day by walking up the hill for dinner at Aperto. It was a nice sunny day and the food we were ordering seemed to demand white wine, so I went with a Verdecchio dei Castelli di Jesi, a wine I have read a fair amount about but have never tasted. I was just vowing the other day to try more Italian whites, and it seemed time to start making good on that vow.

Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi is one of the more famous wines of the Marches area of Italy, an area to the east of Umbria. The Verdicchio grape originated in Marches and is now grown in several regions of Italy, including Tuscany and Friuli. The Marotti Campi family grows these grapes (and the grapes for the handful of other wines they make, including an interesting-sounding Lacrima) in the hills around the town of Jesi, surrounded by castle ruins (castelli). They have been doing this since the 19th century, but are interested in trying new things such as replanting some of their vineyards with high-density plantings.

Notes: This wine is a clear, sparkly lemon yellow in the glass, with glints of chartreuese. The nose is floral and grassy, smelling of white jasmine, hay, lemons, and green apples, and in the mouth it offers more of that tart apple and lemon on the palate, along with some bitter lemon pith flavor in the finish (a slight bitter finish seems common in Verdicchio), which I of course loved. It's got a medium body, probably somewhat from the fact that the grapes were left on the lees a long time, but overall is zesty (the wine sees no oak, which is a good thing in this case) with nice acids and surprising elegance. It went well with our artichoke, leek, and pine nut ravioli and asparagus, leek, and preserved lemon risotto, which was nice considering that asparagus and artichoke can be a pain for wine-pairing. We finished the bottle while watching a guy ride up and down Connecticut Street on his bike. When I asked him what he was training for (if you could see Connecticut Street you would know that people aren't likely to bike up and down it for fun) he said he is going to try to bike up Mount Shasta. Good luck, bike guy!

Cost: about $15

Overall: B+