Ianai — Fabrizio Sepe

Matelica sits within the Marche region's Verdicchio territory — but at a particular altitude, on the high Apennines, that produces a Verdicchio of genuinely distinct character from its better-known cousin, the Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi. The high altitudes deliver minerals, cool nights, and slow ripening; the result is a Verdicchio richer in minerals and taste, and longer in its capacity to age.

The Ianai wine is the creation of Fabrizio Sepe — an artisanal winemaker whose biodynamic approach expresses itself in a production method of striking specificity: manual selection, pressing inertised with nitrogen, cold decantation, and cryo-fermentation. The grapes come from a cru of Balzani vineyards aged over fifty years — old vines in the Marche delivering the depth of root and complexity of soil interaction that only decades of viticulture can produce.

After vinification, the wine ages for six months in steel on the noble lees, completing its work in bottle in a cellar at controlled temperature. The result is a wine of straw yellow colour with greenish reflections, whose smell and taste emerge for their complex fruitiness — ripe exotic fruit and almond — and the vegetable puffs of glycine flowers.

The aforementioned toast fragrance is contrasted by savoury personality, with good persistence and excellent balance, for a rich taste characterised by a finish of vegetable notes from Mediterranean scrub. An harmonic body of real sophistication.

Food pairing ranges from simple meals of meats — mainly white meat — to a wide variety of fish meals and elaborate sauces. Plates of cheese as well as light charcuterie are also recommendable. IANAI is available through UniqueWines — a wine of genuine distinction from one of the Marche's most seriously committed artisan producers.