GOCCE DI PIETRA

Gocce di Pietra — Drops of Stone — is the white wine of the Vernero family estate: a blend of Vermentino (75%), Trebbiano (10%), Albarola (10%), and Malvasia (5%) from the indigenous grapes indicated in the bulletin of the Comizio Agrario of Massa since 1874. This is a wine whose variety composition is literally a matter of historical record — the same varieties, on the same terraced hillsides, documented in the same Massa agricultural council publication that the Vernero family's ancestors would have consulted over a century ago.

The production follows the estate's indigenous philosophy with complete consistency: light pressing, long fermentation in its own native yeasts, six months of ageing in oak barrels — the same meticulous, unhurried approach that the estate applies to all its wines, using only estate grapes and the wild yeasts that inhabit the vineyard environment.

The wine can be kept for three years from the harvest — a longevity that is unusual for a white blend of this character and that reflects both the structure that the Vermentino variety provides and the specific mineral depth that the Candia hills' sandstone and clay soils consistently deliver. It finds its best expression alongside vegetable soups, pasta with pesto and cheese, white meats, fresh cheeses, vegetable pies, Colonnata lard — the specific and characterful preparations of the Tuscan-Ligurian border cuisine.

The name Drops of Stone is a poetic observation about the wine's origin — the sandstone and clay through which the Vernero family's vines sink their roots to extract their mineral character, and which translate into the particular stone-fresh quality that distinguishes this wine from white blends produced in more fertile, less mineral soils.

Available through UniqueWines. 150+ years of Candia hills viticulture.