Borgo Paglianetto

MarcheItaly

Photography and writing by Ted Vance.

Full Length Story

Located sixty kilometers from the Adriatic Sea in the Verdicchio di Matelica DOC, Borgo Paglianetto is both in the heart of Italy’s Marche as well as in an area most famous for mountain-and-sea influenced, salty, minerally Verdicchio. Inside the unique north-to-south-running, land-locked Alta Valle dell’ Esino, Borgo Paglianetto began as a collaboration of five friends in 2008. They have nearly 30 hectares that were planted over twenty years ago (as of 2024), and they’ve been under organic certification since 2013. The straight-as-an arrow vine rows face mostly east, peak at 390 meters and gradually flow downhill to 330. The mother rock is Jurassic limestone from the same period as Burgundy’s Côte d’Or, and with similarly sticky, thick, grayish-white clay topsoil found in many of Burgundy’s best white wine vineyards. The results across the range are impressive, but none more than in the value delivered by the two entry-level Verdicchios: Terravignata and Petrara.