A Wine Lover's Weekly Guide To $10 Wines - A Distinctively Bottled Verdicchio

The wine reviewed below comes from The Marches region of central Italy. That is the region whose residents consume the most wine per capita in all Italy. Furthermore, this is, in fact, The Marches best known wine. But don't jump to any conclusions, read our review.

The bottle is distinctive; I'm talking about its design that dates back to 1954. That was the year the Cleveland Indians winner of a record 111 games lost the World Series to the New York Giants in four straight thanks in large part to Willy Mays historic catch, in effect robbing Vic Wertz of a home run. Was anyone in New York celebrating with Verdicchio way back then? This wine does come in a sparkling version but you don't find much of it in North America today, and presumably even less in the mid-1950s. Let's see if you want to celebrate with this white wine; the second most exported Italian white after Soave. (You may want to check out our recent Soave review.)

OUR WINE REVIEW POLICY All wines that we taste and review are purchased at the full retail price.

Wine Reviewed Fazi Battaglia Verdicchio (dei Castelli di Jesi) 2008 12.0% alcohol about $9.50

Let's start with the marketing materials. Tasting Note: Pale lemon yellow with green tint; green apple and mineral aroma and taste; slight spritz, light body clean, slightly tart grapefruit finish. Serving Suggestion: Serve chilled as an aperitif or with fresh oysters. And now for my review.

With the first sips the wine was harshly acidic and short. The initial meal consisted of zucchini stuffed with rice and ground beef cooked on a bed of potatoes. The meal softened the wine's acidity somewhat. Later on the wine bounced back in the sense that it once again became excessively harsh.

The second meal included a omelet with homemade pesto. The Verdicchio was light and fruity, that's grapefruit. It showed good acidity when consumed with a garden-fresh style tomato. For dessert I enjoyed some French-style high quality lemon pie with a buttery crust. The wine's acidity increased and it did pick up some sweetness.

The final meal was a boxed Eggplant Parmesan slathered with grated parmesan cheese. The wine became somewhat thin but its acidity did balance the tomatoes in the sauce.

Before the cheese pairings I tasted this drink with Matjes herring. It was fairly weak but did present refreshing acidity. Next was the Gouda cheese. The wine perked up in flavor and length but was still fairly mild. Then I went to a Swiss cheese; it's a different Swiss than in the past and does not carry the term Emmenthaler but only Swiss. Perhaps because this Swiss cheese was not as forceful as the previous examples, the wine continued to pick up strength and now qualifies as round.

Final verdict. No dice. It seems that some regional producers, perhaps other producers, are making changes such as temperature controlled stainless steel fermentation and reducing the grape volume per acre to produce a more distinctive Verdicchio than in bygone years. I drank the old Verdicchio and the new one. I don't remember any differences. This is a forgettable wine. Unlike the 1954 World Series, especially if you come from Cleveland, Ohio.