MARTINA

Martina is the Socci family's champion wine — the Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi DOC Classico Superiore that carries the responsibility of telling the story of the Monte Deserto winery and of demonstrating what three hectares on a specific hill in the heart of the classic production zone can achieve when tended as a team between winemaker and vine. It is the wine that has the task of amazing with the passage of time, and it fulfils that task with quiet authority.

The production begins with a must-to-flower pressing — a gentle extraction approach that captures the aromatic compounds released at the earliest stage of pressing, before mechanical action begins to introduce the heavier, more phenolic elements. A cooling of the musts before a slight maceration on the skins follows — a brief period of skin contact at low temperature that adds texture and aromatic complexity without compromising the freshness that defines the Classico Superiore style. Then almost ten months on the fine lees with programmed batonnage — periodic stirring of the lees to release the autolytic compounds that build the wine's complexity and texture — and a hint of sulphites.

Martina has the rich grapes, the greater complexity, and the wine that plays its trump card to the palate: structure, persistence, and envelopment. These three qualities — in the estate's own words — are the characteristics of the Socci family's most considered Verdicchio, and they reflect accurately what ten months of fine lees contact with programmed batonnage achieves in a wine of this quality.

The Monte Deserto hill — three hectares in the centre of the Castelli di Jesi classic area — produces a Verdicchio of specific mineral character, shaped by the calcareous marl with clay component that the estate's soil analysis consistently reveals. In Martina, this soil speaks most clearly and most completely.

Available through UniqueWines. The estate's champion. Since 1973.