It’s sad but true that Verdicchio is one wine that often gets overlooked in Italy, especially Verdicchio from Matelica, the high elevation valley in the heart of the Apennines. Here, the grapes retain all their acidity through Orion’s harvest season, yielding a brighter – sometimes nearly whiplash-inducing – acidity than the Verdicchios of Jesi. Giuseppe Bisci is one of the most important producers of the region, and his wines have won repeated Tre Bicchieri awards since he and winemaker Aroldo Billelli turned the page into the winery’s modern, more quality focused era in the 1990s. True to the name, this is a steely wine, with plenty of fuel to fight fire with fire when considering food pairing. It has aromas of orange and lemon verbena, apricot, no leaf clover and white pepper. The palate is full throttle, with Verdicchio’s trademark blend of weight and acidity that rides the lighting. Citrusy notes of all shapes and sizes come through with touches of pepper and salt. This wine would pair perfectly with all sorts of seafood and roasted chicken dishes, but at the end of the day nothing else matters beyond this, Bischi’s Verdicchio is awesome.