Classico
- Characteristics
- Classico is reserved for wine made from grapes harvested in the denomination’s older origin zone.
The castles, the vines and the amphora
Jesi’s historic Castelli and a twentieth-century bottle shape tell two parts of Verdicchio’s story.
The Castelli in the wine’s name are the communities historically tied to Jesi’s political and economic life, among the hills around the Esino valley. Benedictine and Camaldolese monks helped spread vine growing in the area and pass on winemaking techniques; sharecropping later brought wine into the everyday life of rural households.
In the early 1950s, two producers built a winery in one of the Castelli and gave their wine an amphora-shaped bottle, recalling Ancona’s Greek heritage. Investment in the 1960s then helped replace vines grown among other crops with dedicated vineyards, alongside improvements in wineries and local vine nurseries.
