At Marcanteca, we believe the wines of Le Marche deserve closer attention – for their quality and their capacity to surprise, but also for the history, culture and ways of working that shape the region’s wine. Le Marche’s viticulture straddles breadth and locality: a relatively small stretch of central Italy in which landscape, habit and tradition shift from one area to the next, and where wine changes with them.
Italy is celebrated for its sheer number of native grape varieties (around 2,000 identified, with about 350 officially documented), but in Le Marche the more interesting story is often one of interpretation. Local indigenous grapes take on strikingly different forms depending on where they are grown and how they are handled. A growing number of winemakers are also producing ambitious, high-quality wines from international varieties, widening the conversation around what wine from Le Marche looks like, and what it could become.
Le Marche’s character is one of tension: between coast and inland areas, mountain and maritime influence, native grapes and international varieties, long-standing denominations and looser, more exploratory bottlings. It is a region where Verdicchio, Pecorino, Montepulciano and Sangiovese still clearly matter, but where growers are also reviving historic varieties and exploring regional expressions of Chardonnay, Pinot Nero, Riesling, Grenache and other grapes with a serious approach. A handful of producers are resisting local regulatory limitations, making wine in classic old-world styles with a distinct Le Marche edge - these are little-known, but hold their own at the highest of tables. This combination gives Le Marche a wine culture that is rooted without being fixed, and traditional without being stylistically narrow.
In this series, we’ll delve each month into a different type of wine – sometimes through a grape, sometimes through a denomination or classification, and other times through emerging styles, quiet innovation or territorial projects. We’ll look at Le Marche’s viticultural roots and the histories of local winemaking, but we’ll also get into premium production today and the winemakers changing the region’s profile and its potential for the future. The aim is simple: to open up the range of Le Marche, deepen understanding, and help readers make more confident, curious choices.
