Sartarelli Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico
Superiore Balciana 2007-2015

BY&nbsp;IAN D’AGATA&nbsp;| FEBRUARY 26, 2019

The world’s greatest wines transcend the
grape variety they are made from or even the place they are made. They offer
the best possible expression that can derive from the combination of magical
site, variety and human talent. For example, there are many Montrachets, but
Leflaive and DRC versions are a step above anything else produced from those
hallowed vines; there are many Pomerol or Merlot wines made all over the world,
but what Pétrus achieves is quite unlike anything else anywhere. I do not think
I’ll offend anyone by saying that the most memorable wines that Bruno Giacosa
was able to make from the Santo Stefano cru were quite unlike any made by
anyone else from that vineyard. And though less famous and less well-known to
the general public than some of the aforementioned great wine names, the same
holds true of the Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore Balciana
made by the Sartarelli family in the Marche. Simply put, though there are some
truly great Verdicchio wines (Villa Bucci’s Riserva springs to mind), no other
Verdicchio is anything like Balciana. <img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1551198374734-The+Balciana++amphitheatre-COVER_edited2.jpg"> The Balciana amphitheater&nbsp; 

The Estate

Sartarelli is a rarity in that it is a one-grape
domaine. The estate grows one cultivar only, Verdicchio, from which they make a
wide range of wines: a sparkling wine, three different dry whites, ranging from
the entry-level Verdicchio to the late-harvested Balciana; and a sweet Passito from
air-dried grapes. The estate is located in Poggio San Marcello, the smallest
village in the province of Ancona, situated on the left bank of the Esino River,
where the most perfumed Verdicchios have historically been made. It was
Ferruccio Sartarelli, a high-quality baker with a passion for wine, who decided
to try his hand at making a world-class Verdicchio. In 1972 he founded the
estate bearing his family name. Sartarelli is still a family-run affair, with
the husband-and-wife team of Patrizio Chiacchierini and Donatella Sartarelli
slowly turning over the reins to their son Tommaso (winemaker) and daughter
Caterina (marketing, export and sales). The estate extends over 55 hectares of
vines (and six hectares of olive trees) and produces about 300,000 bottles a
year. The family has recently finished renovating the winery and building a
very interesting museum dedicated, not surprisingly, to Verdicchio, its
characteristics, its history and its territory.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1551193216156-The+Sartarelli+family_edited.jpg"> The Sartarelli family

The Wine and Its Terroir

Balciana is the name of the specific area
in which the vineyard was planted; it is, in other words, a toponym. The wine
is the product of a single nine-hectare vineyard, shaped like an amphitheater,
that is clearly visible from the terrace of the Sartarelli winery. Plant
density is not especially noteworthy (only 2,500 vines/hectare) and the soils
are mostly marly-calcareous. The average vine age is about 25 years; the northeast
vines lie 300–350 meters above sea level and the slope is not especially steep
(12–15%). The first vintage of Balciana was the 1994, and the wine is made only
in the best years (so not in 1996, 2002 or 2005). Production ranges from
6,000–15,000 bottles a year, depending on the vintage.

Most importantly, Balciana is blessed with
a unique, fairly cool microclimate, so the vineyard is almost always hit by
noble rot. Save for a few particularly dry vintages (2003, for example),
virtually all Balcianas have been made with 5–10% of the grapes affected by
botrytis. Grapes are usually harvested anywhere from the end of October to the
end of November (with most harvests thus far having taken place in the first
two weeks of November). The grapes ripen extremely well in the Balciana
vineyard, and long hang time allows an easy accumulation of sugar. Therefore,
the wine is rarely less than 14.5% alcohol, because lower alcohol levels would
mean making an off-dry wine. In fact, Balcianas from the 1990s all show a touch
of residual sweetness and slightly lower alcohol levels, but the Sartarelli
family has moved toward a slightly drier style over the years. In any case, the
combination of late harvest, extreme ripeness and noble rot makes for a remarkably
rich, luscious wine that is quite unlike any other dry white made in Italy. <img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1551193273745-Balciana+vertical+lineup+front+label_edited.jpg"> 

Balciana’s terroir is very important in
defining the wine’s characteristics. Thanks to its northeast exposure and the heavily
forested summit of the Balciana hill, the vines bask in a relatively cool, very
well-ventilated microclimate unlike that of any other vineyard owned by
Sartarelli. The vineyard’s microclimate remains remarkably fresh even in the
warmest years. In fact, Balciana offers a very interesting lesson in the
importance of terroir. In 1999, the Sartarelli family bought another large
portion of the slope slightly lower and off to the side from where the original
Balciana vines grow, and planted that plot with Verdicchio in 2000. Their
thinking, quite logically, was that since this new portion abutted the original
Balciana vineyard and the two vineyards were planted on similar soil, the grapes
from the new vineyard might one day be used to increase the annual production
of Balciana. But it was not to be. After a number of years and trials, the
family realized that the new vineyard never allows the formation of noble rot
because of the combination of slope, microclimate and exposure results in a
lack of humidity that is essential for the development of noble rot. Even more interestingly,
the Verdicchio grapes in this plot, which is literally planted only a few
meters away from the original Balciana vineyard, were prone to intense
air-drying directly on the vine, unlike the Verdicchio growing in Balciana,
where no (or very little) air-drying of grapes ever occurs. In other words, the
grapes from the new plot never behaved, looked or tasted like those of
Balciana, and the wine made with them tasted nothing like Balciana either.
Mysteries of terroir, really. In the end, it was decided that grapes from the
new plot of vines would instead be used to make a completely new wine, giving
birth to Sartarelli’s Verdicchio Passito. 

The wines in this report were tasted on two different occasions: in
September 2017 with bottles sourced directly at the winery and again in June
2018 with bottles sourced directly from my cellar and bought upon release.
There was little or no difference between the tasting notes and scores of the
two series of wines tasted, but the estate’s bottles all benefited from
decanting, or at least did so to a greater degree than mine. I suggest popping
the cork at least one hour in advance on all Balciana Verdicchios that are five
or more years old.<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/wines?sort%5Bdirection%5D=asc&amp;sort%5Bname%5D=id&amp;wine_filter%5Barticle_id%5D=2117&amp;wine_filter%5Bproducer_id%5D=1079&amp;producer=true">See the Wines from Youngest to Oldest</a>You Might Also Enjoy<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/golden-oldies-goodies-a-look-at-the-ageworthiness-of-verdicchio-oct-2018">Golden Oldies &amp; Goodies: A Look at the Ageworthiness of Verdicchio</a>, Ian D'Agata, October 2018<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/bucci-verdicchio-dei-castelli-di-jesi-classico-riserva-villa-bucci-may-2018">Bucci Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Riserva Villa Bucci</a>, Ian D'Agata, May 2018<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/new-releases-from-the-marche-life-beyond-verdicchio-feb-2018">New Releases from the Marche: Life Beyond Verdicchio?</a>, Ian D'Agata, February 2018

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