About La Staffa
La Staffa is a small producer located in the Marche region of central Italy, focused exclusively on white wines from the Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi DOC appellation. The estate works with the Verdicchio grape, a variety well suited to the hills of the Jesi Classico zone, producing wines such as their Classico Superiore. Their approach is centered on expressing the character of the local terroir through minimal intervention in the cellar.
Prices are for take away and shipping. The wine bar serves from its own list.
The winery
About La Staffa
History
La Staffa was founded in 1992 by Luigino Baldi as a small family cellar with a limited output in Staffolo, in the Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi country of the northern Marche. In 2009 his son Riccardo took charge. He was nineteen, had just started university, and the pull of the family vineyard changed his plans. The Italian wine blog Intravino called him the golden boy of Verdicchio in 2013, and a Slow Food book later described him as the young prodigy of Staffolo.
Under Riccardo the estate has grown into one of the most praised producers in the Marche. His Rincrocca Riserva brought Gambero Rosso's Tre Bicchieri back to Staffolo after fourteen years without one, and in 2021 he was named best Italian wine producer under 35 at the Food&Wine Italia Awards in Rome. The Classico Superiore La Staffa turned thirty with its 2022 vintage.
The land and the vineyards
Staffolo is nicknamed the balcony of the Vallesina for the view of vine rows from its medieval walls, and also the hill of Verdicchio: a village of little over two thousand people with some twenty wineries. Local legend links its name to the Greek word for a bunch of grapes. Riccardo farms twelve hectares, organically certified and mostly planted to Verdicchio with some Montepulciano: seven hectares around the winery in Contrada Castellaretta and five more in nearby plots. The vineyards sit between 400 and 500 metres, with exposures that change from plot to plot and wide swings between day and night temperatures. The soils are mainly clay and limestone, rich in calcium carbonate, which gives the wines of the area their marked savoury edge.
The wines
Fermentation uses only native yeasts, and much of the work is done in concrete tanks. The Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore La Staffa ferments in steel and concrete and rests a few months on its lees; it is meant above all to be easy to drink, with fresh fruit, flint and hay. Rincrocca, the Classico Riserva DOCG, comes from a vineyard planted in 1972, ferments in concrete and stays another twelve months on its lees. Selva di Sotto, a limited Riserva inspired by the Verdicchio master Carlo Pigini Campanari and by the great Verdicchio of the 1980s and 1990s, comes from a steep vineyard at 500 metres planted in 1974, surrounded by woods and full of stones. Mai Sentito! is a Verdicchio with a little Trebbiano, sparkling from a second fermentation in bottle, and Euphoria is a Marche rosato from local red grapes.
Today
Over half of the production is exported, mostly to the United States, France, Japan and northern Europe, and Rincrocca and Selva di Sotto appear on restaurant lists in New York and Paris.
- Founded
- 1992
- Area
- Staffolo (Ancona), Castelli di Jesi
- Vineyards (hectares)
- 12
- Main grapes
- Verdicchio, Montepulciano
- Owners
- Baldi family
- Winemaker
- Riccardo Baldi