Tenuta di Tavignano is located in a valley above the Musone River which flows between the Apiennes and the Adriatic on Italy’s hamstring.

Cingoli, known as the ‘balcony of the Marche’ since medieval times is just up the road, and the ancient town of Jesi is down wind.

I’ve arrived here on a quest for one of Italy’s best known white wines – Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi.  Misco, the name of this wine, is Latin for Musone, and Tenuta di Tavignano produces one of the top 100% Verdicchios available today, although wine has been made in this region of Italy since the 14th century.

Ondine de la Feld Aymerich (right) is the current custodian of Tavignano on behalf of her uncle Stefano Aymerich di Laconi and Beatrice Lucangeli.  She is one very busy person – orchestrating the work required to produce 150,000 bottles per year of everything from bubbles to whites to reds on 17 hectares.

This estate tasting started with a conversation about the available wines – some of which can be purchased by Canadians in Ontario and Quebec, and of course – in many other international markets. They’re top-ranked with regularity by industry heavyweights like Decanter, and Galloni,  But at Tavignano, the best deal is their ‘sfuso’ or from-the-barrel wines which are packaged simply for friends and neighbours at only 2€ a litre.

As Ondine remarks, ‘In Italy, wine is our bread.  We have the wine, bread and oil at church and this is part of our Italian heritage,  our life.  It’s our right and we want to make it available to everyone.’

I only wish the prohibitionists working within and across the restrictive Canadian wine laws felt the same.  For now, I’ll have to keep travelling to Jesi, Italy to take advantage of the deals.

And this is one of them. The Misco Riserva 2017 is made from handpicked passes over the last, most mature grapes of the harvest. Deep lemon, the nose and palate is all elegance – almond biscotti, white flowers, acacia and anise.  The year it spent on lees has built a real beauty with a deeply mineral backbone.  Two more years of aging in stainless steel gives the impression of it having spent time in wood, although it hasn’t.

I left with a bottle of this delicious wine (it’s not available as a sfuso), thanks to our helpful tasting guide Erica (pictured right).