Jasci & Marchesani from Abruzzo were my first stop at the show itself and it was nice to see Nicola, Luana and Teresa again. We started with this organic vineyard just before Covid and their Montepulcianos have quickly become firm favourites with our customers. Their unwavering support and encouragement has been fantastic.

Then out came a couple of bottles of PetNat for me to taste! Pètillant Naturel is a style of fizz otherwise known as Méthode Ancestrale which was conceived a long time ago in Limoux in France and has caught on properly only in recent years.

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Part way through fermentation the juice is bottled under the final closure and the alcoholic fermentation continues, producing a cloudy, sedimenty, dry wine that is about as close to natural as you can get especially when made with organically grown fruit as in this case. Imagine raw juice with all the consequent mouthfeel and appearance but fermented to dry and lightly sparkling.

 

The first was a blend of white varieties which I thought was fabulous while the second was a pale-ish “rosé purely from Montepulciano grapes. An interesting feature of this latter is that when I asked about time spent on the skins to get the colour the answer was that there was none! It seems that this variety’s colouring is so intense that even the free-run juice is stained immediately. Never knew that.

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To read the full report, including tasting with Peter Zemmer and Casali Roncali,
click here