AGEING ITALIAN WHITES: a (patient) wine lover's guide

Put aside those preconceptions, Aldo Fiordelli argues – as well as its plethora of youngand-fresh white wine styles, Italy offers many surprising options that are well worth tucking away in your cellar. He highlights the producers to seek out, and 10 great wines to age

- Aldo Fiordelli

A strikingly beautiful wine of citrussy and flinty minerality, with subdued nuttiness and a refreshing style: undoubtedly Puligny, some of the wine lovers around the table were thinking. But it wasn’t. Similarly, it wasn’t as young as estimated by the majority of us. Jaws dropped when the bottle was revealed to be a non-macerated Vitovska 1996 from Edi Kante in Carso, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia’s far southeastern corner along the border with Slovenia.

In Italy, white wines are almost always intended for early consumption. Arneis, Cortese, Friulano and Vernaccia are all examples of delicious, crisp wines. Italian producers are not challenged to produce ageworthy whites, mainly because the consumer is suspicious of drinking them after more than two to three years. So, to what extent are we aware of the evolution of certain indigenous Italian white wines?

Looking around the country, there are at least two groups of grape varieties that deserve a more respectful approach. Vitovska, along with Trebbiano d’Abruzzo and Carricante, are fairly neutral whites marked by steely minerality, high acidity and low pH. On the other side, there are the more phenolic grape such as Fiano, Garganega and Vermentino: less neutral, less aggressive in acidity, richer in body. Verdicchio shares characteristics with both groups.

Of course, it must be said that there are also outstanding examples of international grape varieties in Italy with well-known labels, including Antinori’s Cervaro della Sala from Umbria (a blend of Chardonnay and Grechetto), Gaja’s Gaia & Rey from Langhe (Chardonnay; see ‘Interview’, p74) and Querciabella’s Batàr (Chardonnay and Pinot Bianco) in the SuperTuscan category.