Wine of the Moment, 2020 Claudio Morelli La Vigna delle Terrazze Bianchello Del Metauro

Native varieties, indigenous varieties - you hear the words a lot but what makes them special?  They are not necessarily better than international grapes but for me they are just simply more interesting.  Native grapes are those that are born in a specific place and have remained almost exclusively in that place.  They tend to travel poorly and generally have a difficult time when grown in a different terroir.  And when they are grown other places, they almost never become the quality wines they represent in their native country.  

The sheer number of native varieties is one of the many reasons I love Italian wine.  Italy offers a never ending treasure trove of little known regions producing wine from grapes you've never heard of in places you've never been.  Wine writer and critic Ian D'Agata has dedicated a 620 page book to them, The Native Grapes of Italy, with historical and anecdotal information on more than 500 grapes.  It fascinates me that something as simple as a grape can tell they story of a place - its history, its culture, its food and its people.

Writing about native varieties brings me to my current wine of the moment, the 2020 Claudio Morelli La Vigna delle Terrazze Bianchello Del Metauro, a wine I tasted at VinItaly in 2019 that has finally arrived. It comes from Le Marche (Mar-kay) region, nestled between the eastern slopes of the Apennines, the spiny mountain range of central Italy, and the central coast of the Adriatic Sea. It shares borders with the wine powerhouse regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Emilia-Romagna, Abruzzo, and Lazio. Its prime location between the sea and the mountains, gives it the best of both worlds- the southern part of the region a Mediterranean/maritime climate (land influenced by the sea) the while northern half is characterized by a much more continental climate (land influenced by the land itself and far from an ocean). Like many Italian regions there are a plethora of DOC’s (15) and DOCG (5), but only a few make the cut on the American market. 

Claudia Morelli's family has been producing wine and olive oil near the town of Fano, in the norther part of the region, for generations.  Bianchello (also called Biancame) which is thought to be a branch of Italy’s vast Trebbiano family, is Morelli’s main preoccupation, although he grows Sangiovese, Montepulciano, and several other red grapes as well.  His vineyards sit at the mouth of the Metauro river on a mix of hard volcanic tuff and sand, and the proximity of the vineyards to the Adriatic provides ample ventilation, giving the grapes some extra hang time on the vines.  Morelli’s “La Vigna delle Terrazze” (“the terraced vineyards”) comes from his oldest Bianchello plots just outside Fano, which were planted in the 1970s.  When discussing the wines to try from the region, Ian D'Agata mentions 3 producers, Morelli being one of them.

Never a fruit bomb, Bianchello tends to have high acidity and somewhat light aromatics. To coax more intensity and complexity our of the grapes, Morelli uses cold maceration is to extract aromatic compounds and other phenolics from the skins while preventing oxidation, and by aging the wine only in steel, he wants to highlight varietal and regional character above all else.

A drink now medium bodied wine with high acidity and a salty dab of minerality, Morelli's Bianchello is big on aromatics of apple, melon, citrus and fresh herbs and is screaming for seafood! Grilled fish, fish piccata, crudo or flaky white fish or shellfish would make this wine shine, just don’t be surprised if a bottle of Bianchello disappears during prep time. At $20.50, you should stock up accordingly!