Colli Di Catoni, Frascati Superiore, Lazio, Italy 2020

Italy’s list of transcendent white wines is short, compelling and idiosyncratic. It begins with three growers famed for their obsessive commitment to the indigenous grapes of their region, as well as to their individuality in expressing them. These men are Valentini, Gravner, and Miani. But over the past 30 years, a fourth, far more obscure producer, Antonio Pulcini, has quietly been turning out white wines of mind-bending complexity. The obscurity of Pulcini’s wines is in part due to his reclusiveness and how he chooses to sell his wines, exclusively from the cellar door of his estate, Colli di Catone. (He has long eschewed importers and critics.)

Pulcini works in an ancient villa overlooking Rome, whose 2000-year-old, catacomb-like cellar features a 300 A.D. Christian altar. The villa itself once belonged to the sister of Trajan—the Roman Emperor in the century after Christ’s death. More relevantly, the villa is surrounded by vineyards planted on southwest-facing slopes of volcanic tufa soils; sites rich in minerals and prized by the ancient Romans.

The Catone estate has been renowned for its wines since the heyday of the Roman Empire. Antonio Pulcini embraces the regions native varieties and has particularly championed the ancient Malvasia Puntinata and Grechello. Yields are kept to just a small fraction of the appellation’s limits and the wines are aged for extended time with the skins, on the lees, and in the bottle until Pulcini deems them ready.

As one peels back the layers, the compelling character of Pulcini’s winebegins to emerge. Pulcini aimed to craft wines that honored history. He longed to make the kind of structured wines that could live for decades.
Pulcini chose to focus on indigenous white varieties that once made the region famous. And so, over 30 years ago, he tore out most of his modern Trebbiano and Malvasia di Candia, and today focuses on the ancient varieties, Malvasia del Lazio (aka Malvasia Puntinata) and Grechetto (aka Greco Bianco). Malvasia del Lazio was long recognized as the region’s greatest historic variety; cherished for its wines’ minerality and ageability.

Pulcini makes an array of wines, but the best introduction to his style is his rendition of Frascati Superiore. He incorporates 40% Malvasia del Lazio into the conventional blend of Malvasia Candia and Trebbiano, and even these latter two varieties gain added character through his fastidious viticulture and famously low yields – less than half the legal limit. In his hands, this DOCG of often frivolous whites offers superb character and minerality.