The good news continues for wine from the Marche region, not only for exports, which have reached record figures, but because Osimo, in the province of Ancona, is home to Gambero Rosso’s Wine Cellar of the Year for the Vini d’Italia Guide 2024, in which an effective generational transition has allowed the company’s management a steady development, investing in quality and quantity.
Today USA, Canada, Scandinavia, Germany, UK and Japan are among the main foreign markets. But with exports now registering an annual growth of close to 25 percent since Covid, less explored borders such as Brazil, where numerous companies from the Marche are growing, are also increasingly empowering.
We have no doubt that whatever your country of residence, you can find a few Marche bottles on the shelves or in restaurants in your city. Have you ever tried?
With its important wines and a 40 percent of its vineyards certified organic, Le Marche not only sells “out” but is now one of the most sought-after destinations for food and wine enthusiasts and can offer a lot to you, too, if you let us guide you.
You will get to know firsthand the quality of its products, but above all the link, strong and authentic, with the territory. Unique terroirs, wise production techniques, hidden knowledge, soils so different from each other (we will touch the clayey inland, different from the limestone along the coast) and yet always generative.
The areas suited for excellent production are several: from Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi to Verdicchio di Matelica, from Rosso Conero to Rosso Piceno, passing through Vernaccia di Serrapetrona, Bianchello del Metauro, Colli Maceratesi, Colli Pesaresi, Terreni di San Severino, up to Morro d’Alba, with its Lacrima, the production areas of Pergola and the wonderful villages of San Ginesio, Tolentino, Offida.
Marche Wine: the most original specialities
The Marche’s winemaking tradition is pre-Roman and already practiced by the Greeks, and the specialties, with the most original and daring characters, are two:
- Verdicchio, Marche’s best-known native grape variety, icon of a territory and export spearhead: both in its young and fresh version and in its longer-lived and full-bodied one, it proves to be much more than a “simple white wine,” with organoleptic characteristics capable of attracting even red wine lovers. It should also be tasted in its experimentation as a sparkling wine and in the passito version. The rich supply of fish, caught with short chain directly in the Adriatic Sea, make this wine an excellent and versatile match for local cuisine. Around Jesi, land of this white berry, a myriad of charming villages to get to know, ancient churches, abbeys and of course many wineries, each with its own personality.
- Vernaccia di Serrapetrona: among the smallest DOCs in Italy, the surprise of an excellent natural red sparkling wine, derived from grapes set to dry on mats before being pressed and very limited production: an area of just 45 hectares, a hidden gem. Its production area is in the province of Macerata, one of the areas with the greatest emigratory flow in the Marche region, and here, between sips, especially at harvest time (September) we will make you appreciate that sentimental hospitality spread to Italian descendants.
Among the four hundred museums active in the Marche region, we could not miss those dedicated to wine, an authentic cultural product: in it are found both the roots of a peasant civilization that has contributed over the centuries to preserving the territory, and the work of the present generations that boldly turn to different markets.
Luigi Bartolini, a Marche writer who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, while more than 700,000 inhabitants were leaving this land and others were investing in it, wrote: “If the Marche people would organize themselves and if they would discipline the cultivation of vines, if they would cultivate renowned grapes, behold our soil would appear the most favorable to Bacchus…” , it seems indeed that the poet’s advice has been followed to the letter: 26 appellations (7 Docg, 12 Doc, 7 DOP), all to taste!
What are you waiting for?