Italian Values
by Anthony Lynch
2025 Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi
Italy | Le Marche
This summer’s heat wave in Europe impacted me in a way I never imagined: temperatures in the triple digits day after day dampened my habitually fervent desire for an evening glass of wine. Worn from the blazing sun, I instead craved an ice-cold sparkling water, some fruit juice to replenish lost nutrients, or, I dare to write in these pages, a crisp beer.
But I could not abandon wine altogether. Luckily, when refreshment is all that matters, Colleleva’s Verdicchio offers a revitalizing solution. A frosty glass of this zippy white feels like the car’s air conditioning on full blast when the back of your shirt is damp and sticking to the seat. It is that first plunge into the blue sea after you spent too long baking on the hot rocks. It is a salty mist from the Adriatic, a zesty squeeze of lime, a bright herbal tonic that transcends extreme conditions to provide the cleanest and purest form of refreshment when it’s most needed.
2024 Langhe Nebbiolo
Italy | Piedmont
Marco Tintero, aka Mr. Value, makes wines so affordable one might reasonably assume he takes shortcuts detrimental to quality to trim costs. If you were to pay him a visit at his winery in the dramatic hills of the Langhe, however, it would immediately become clear this is far from being the case. His rugged hands and dirt-stained boots betray his passion for his vines, and what vines they are! Many of his parcels are jaw-droppingly steep, making farming an arduous toil of sweat and sometimes blood—cutting corners is not even an option. A spirited bon vivant, Marco prices his wines so others can take pleasure in them, too. His Nebbiolo is silky-smooth with textbook aromas of tar, raspberry, and a whiff of smoke, and sits at a crossroads of authenticity and value that is preciously rare.