Fattoria Mancini Impero Blanc de Pinot Noir Marche IGT

Description

Fattoria Mancini Impero Blanc de Pinot Noir Marche IGT is a Blanc de Noir, a white wine made from red grapes. Blanc de Noir is not a particularly common style of wine, but remember most Champagne is a blend of Chardonnay and two red grapes, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.

The family owned Fattoria Mancini has been making wine for five generations and are well-known as Pinot Noir specialists. The winery was founded in 1861 and they have 30 hectares of vineyards located in the Monte San Bartolo Natural Park in the far north of the March region, only a few minutes from the Romagna border. The vineyards that stretch around the coastline of Pesaro with their clay-limestone soil and temperatures moderated by the Adriatic are well known for their suitability to Pinot Noir production. They also grow Sangiovese, Ancellotta and Albanella, a typical and exclusive white grape from Pesaro.

The family had produced a white wine from Pinot Noir for over 40 years before the Fattoria Mancini Impero Blanc de Pinot Noir, a serious quality white Pinot Noir, was first released in 1998. The 100% Pinot Noir grapes come from vineyards in the Colli Pesaresi DOC (it is bottled as a Marche IGT), located one kilometre from the coast an altitude of 100 to 150 metres. The soils are silty, deep, limestone with a high sandy component. The grapes are hand harvested into 15kg boxes, which are chilled to ensure the grapes arrive as fresh as possible to the winery.

The juice collected from the Pinot Noir grapes is the free run juice, juice produced by the weight of the grapes themselves. This is done with the utmost care to ensure that there is minimal contact between juice and the skins (where the colour comes from). The juice is barrel fermented in barriques, with malolactic fermentation, followed by a period of 12 months maturation on the lees in 228 litre French barriques (20% new, 40% second and 40% third fill).

Think Italian Burgundy, sort of!