Variety: 100% Verdicchio
Region: Marche, Italy
Cost: $26 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: The Podium bottling is the family’s flagship wine made from a special selection of grapes from a single vineyard. Yields are lowered and harvest is delayed. The wine is fermented on the lees for eight months, after fining and matured in the bottle for six months. Podium is incredibly important, not only for the family but also for the Italian wine industry as a whole as it is one of the most lauded and awarded single-vineyard white wines of Italy, having received 15 Tre Bicchieri awards. The wine is complex and is the family’s most ageable white wine.
My Review: Whew….I’m a bit behind on these. I’m still counting this as a new grape to me since the only other time I’ve had it was the Macrina that I reviewed a few weeks back. That being said, it’s nice to get to review different wines of the same grape and winemaker that are clearly made much differently; it really shows you the versatility of the grape and the winemaker.
So let’s jump in and see what I thought of the 2016 Garofoli “Podium” Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore DOC.
In the glass the wine was a light yellow colour with slashes of green that showed through when held up to the light. On the nose, I picked up aromas citrus and white flowers. In the mouth, the 2016 Podium shows lots of citrus (mostly lime), with white flowers also jumping out immediately. As the wine opened up, I also picked up some hints of gooseberry.
The wine was crisp, with good acid, something I know can be chalked up to spending 15 months in concrete and stainless steel tanks instead of oak (which also helped to make the wine more wife friendly). My wife and I paired the wine with chicken piccata, and the acid was a nice of the wine was a nice compliment to the food, the lime/acid notes bringing out the bite of the capers in the dish.
I really liked this wine. It’s certainly different than the “Macrina”; it’s got a bit more character and is definitely a more mature wine. For $26 I think it’s a great value, and it’s definitely one to keep an eye out for when you want something with some teeth to it but that won’t just make your teeth ache with the acid.
Editor’s Note: I received this wine as a free sample for review.
