2018 Andrea Felici Verdicchio Dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore DOC 750 ml

Just a few short weeks ago, winemaker Leopardo Felici, who crafted this vivid and precise white wine, raised his family’s estate to the upper echelon of Italian wine: Gambero Rosso, Italy’s most important wine publication, crowned him Winemaker of the Year for Wines of Italy 2020.

The wine community on both sides of the Atlantic agreed that the honor was well deserved. Leopardo’s wines are all stellar, and this magnificent Verdicchio absolutely stunned our team with its sleek aromas of salted preserved lemons, sliced green apples, and lime blossoms, while its diamond-cut palate showcased flavors of white nectarines and yellow plums sliced through with vivid minerality.

Sauvignon Blanc drinkers will love the citrus in this vibrant white; fans of Grüner Veltliner will adore the minerality and focus; and absolutely everyone on the hunt for a versatile, food-friendly white wine that vastly over-delivers for the price will be immediately won over by how the Verdicchio frames everything, from simply sauteed seafood to fettuccine alfredo, with ease. At $16.99 per bottle, and less than $15 each when you buy a case, it’s perfectly suited to being enjoyed any day of the week.

Success of this magnitude has been a long time coming for Leopardo Felici. His family has been tending their hilltop land for generations, and before his father Andrea handed over the keys, he wanted to make sure that his son understood the entire world of wine, not just Italy’s Marche region.

Years of work as a sommelier in London and Italy—ultimately at Enoteca Pinchiorri, the most famous of all of Italy’s Michelin three-star restaurants—led to a love affair with Chablis and white Burgundy. The influence of those minerally, terroir-driven wines can be sensed in every glass of this Verdicchio. But, of course, at a fraction of the price.

Which is remarkable when you consider how he’s crafting this classic. Leo himself has summed up his winemaking as working with “love and infinite attention to detail,” but a lot more than that goes into it. Vines of up to 40 years old are chosen from around the Felici estate. His personal vineyard, at close to 2,000 feet in elevation, is higher than any other in the appellation. As a result, the shift between warm sunny days and crisp nights allows the wine to boast stunningly expressive fruit alongside the kind of structure that most white wines never achieve.

After harvest, the juice is soaked for several days on the skins in order to impart it with even more character, then fermented in stainless steel and concrete—he doesn’t want oak to obscure what makes his land so unique. It’s then aged on its lees for up to a year, which lends the wine a sense of creaminess alongside its vibrant energy.

The result is a wine that, year after year, tops the annual best-of articles from critics and journalists around the world. Last year, Forbes included Felici’s wines in their list of the best whites in Italy. Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s top newspapers, listed it in their top 50 wineries of Italy for 2019, alongside such icons as Sassicaia, Quintarelli, and Cavallotto. Gambero Rosso has awarded Leopardo’s wines Tre Bicchieri for the past four years in a row.

The 2018 Andrea Felici Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore is the kind of wine that sommeliers clamor for and critics love. That kind of acclaim usually comes with a far steeper price tag. Not this one, though: Less than $20 for pedigree like this is as good as it gets, in Italy or anywhere else around the world.