FARNEA
Il Pazzo 2017
Veneto, Italy
Merlot from a vineyard Marco planted in a southerly exposition. It was fermented as whole bunches for a month, before being pressed off to big old barrels for nine months. As always this is the darkest, deepest and most savoury of Marco’s reds, though this year it is open and generous in its youth.
Merlot
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Marco Buratti’s Farnea occupies a particularly beautiful part of the Colli Euganei National Park.
The land here has been planted with grapes since the eighteenth century, when the vignaioli of old were drawn to the area’s volcanic soils. Marco began with around one and half hectares of vines and three hectares of woodland in the hills above his cottage and has since acquired a further hectare of vines in nearby Bettone, where he also keeps pigs, chickens and sheep, eking out a simple life on the land.
Marco’s vines are worked by hand without the use of chemicals, a way of working he had decided on before beginning in 2003. The cantina consists of a small room at the edge of Marco’s house strewn with various vessels and simple winemaking tools. Along with healthy grapes, these are all Marco uses to make his wines, and there is nothing added at any stage.
Brimming with energy, Marco’s are amongst the most vibrant wines we have found in Italy and once opened, a bottle does not last long.