Tenute Lunelli Villa Margon, Chardonnay 2019

This is stellar stuff.

Burgundian in concept and execution, this is part of the wonderful trend in Italian wineries to take white-winemaking as a serious enterprise. You see it in Collio, Colli Orientale and in parts of Tuscany and Umbria (like Antinori's scarce and very pricey Cervaro della Sala...) and this is very much part of that ilk.

This is a good news story!

The wine is complex, layered, long and delicious, with flavours of ripe apples, tropical fruit, subtle spices and a clean, mineral and mouth-watering finish. If you think of Saint Aubin, or maybe even Chassagne, then you're not far off. This is stunning at any level, never mind the offer price...

Giuio Ferrari was a pioneer in sparkling wine production and established his winery in 1902. Having no children to pass the winery to through inheritance, he sought out a successor himself, rather than leaving market forces to dictate the future of it's story. He selected a wine shop owner (good decision) called Bruno Lunelli, from Trento. 

Bought by the Lunelli family in the 1980s, the sixteenth-century Villa Margon is situated in vineyard area that ranges from 350 to 600 metres above sea level, surrounded by the Trento hills, pre-Alps and Alps. Achingly beautiful, it is the place they bring you to visit when they want to treat you like royalty. Outside the villa, the vinyards are almost perfect for the production of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The mineral-rich soils are free-draining and fairly hostile for the propagation of any other type of crop, making it ideal conditions for vines. The land is split into various locations, with a higher site backed by a limestone wall for the Pinot Noir and the land surrounding the Villa being better suited to Chardonnay, while a separate plating of Chardonnay further away is used for the third wine that they produce. It's very straight-forward.

Made using stainless steel tanks and some old barrels for fermentation, the ageing is then carried out in both steel tanks and varying sizes of oak barrels, with almost all of them being second or third use. It allows for real structural support for the high quality fruit and means that the wine is genuinely capable of decent development. Sustainably grown and made, this wonderful wine will sadly not be around for very much longer as our route to the source is closing after this lot has gone.