Falerio DOC Franco Aurora 2020

Falerio DOC Franco Aurora, organic dry white wine, Trebbiano, Pecorino, Passerina, natural yeast, 10% funky, 100% delicious. Falerio Bianco from Franco Aurora, a blend of Trebbiano, Pecorino and Passerina makes the other offerings of this little known white wine seem totally pedestrian. Smooth and fresh with notes of apple, pear and jasmine flower. The heat in the area means whites tend towards slightly lower acidity but this one certainly doesn’t lack freshness. It bursts with regional identity and in hot weather is the perfect glass of white wine with a few black olives from the Marche region, or a goat’s cheese salad.

Franco Auroras place is at the end of a dirt track which goes past Ciu Ciu (over a million bottles a year) and arrives at a small 15 hectare farm dried out by the sun and with swooping vineyards which fall away off the hillside to the beautiful valley below.

All the vineyards are organic and Franco is starting to employ some biodynamic principles as well. The wine making has also always been non-interventionist since Franco started the estate in the mid 80s. Wild yeasts he says are the key to quality and his minimises sulphur addition too. The wines have great freshness, even the humble Falerio which has some older vine Pecorino in it is a delicious wine, a touch funky and so much better than the rest of the Falerio in the region. Franco himself is a committed natural wine maker and artisan, not intending to produce any more than his current 50000 bottles (across 7 different cuvee) even though he says he could sell his production twice over. Try these wines, they are superb.