Ep. 2445 Remembering Ampelio Bucci | Everybody Needs A Bit Of Scienza

Welcome to Episode 2445 of the Italian Wine Podcast and Everybody Needs a Bit of Scienza. This is a special episode with Professor Attilio Scienza and Stevie Kim, as they pay tribute to Ampelio Bucci, the founding visionary behind Villa Bucci and instrumental in elevating the Verdicchio grape to world-class status. This episode is in Italian.

 

More about Ampelio Bucci:

Ampelio Bucci is widely regarded as the founding father of Verdicchio, the man who transformed it from a simple regional white wine into one of Italy’s most respected and age-worthy expressions. After a successful career in Milan’s fashion industry, he returned to his family estate in the Marche during the late 1970s and early 1980s with a vision to prove that Verdicchio could rival the world’s great wines. In 1983, he began bottling under the Villa Bucci name, working with old vines rooted in limestone soils and reviving traditional methods such as fermenting and aging in large, seasoned oak barrels. His patience, insistence on late bottling, and focus on native grapes set him apart in an era when most Verdicchio was produced for quick, easy drinking.

Bucci’s work quickly changed the reputation of the grape. Critics such as Antonio Galloni dubbed him the “dean of Verdicchio,” and Decanter called him one of the finest and most famous producers of the variety. His wines demonstrated that Verdicchio could be structured, elegant, and capable of remarkable longevity, placing it alongside Italy’s most prestigious appellations. Villa Bucci became a benchmark estate, its Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Riserva viewed as a reference point for the style.

In 2024, Bucci passed the torch to the Veronesi family of the Oniverse Group, who acquired Villa Bucci while keeping him on as a consultant. Today, Ampelio Bucci is remembered not just as a producer, but as the visionary who gave Verdicchio international acclaim and a place at the table of the world’s great wines.

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