Verduzzo - Wine

Wine

Verduzzo has the potential to create a wide variety of wine styles with dry styles produced in larger quantities than the sweeter style. The sweeter styles tend to be more commercially successful, particularly the late harvest dessert wines and passito wine style made by drying the grape to near raisins after they are harvested. These sweet Verduzzos are medium bodied with a deep golden color and honeyed aromas. The drier styles have a lighter body and more astringency due to less balance of the grape's sugars with its tannin levels.

According to wine expert Jancis Robinson, well made varietal examples of sweet Verduzzo from favorable vintages can be "powerful and fresh" with the potential to age in the bottle for a few years after the vintage date. Robinson notes that these wines will often have slight herbal and cedar notes along with the honeyed aromas commonly associated with the style. However, for the drier style, Robinson believes that the slight astringent character of Verduzzo tends to become more noticeable.

Oz Clarke describes the sweeter examples of Verduzzo as "runny honey" with floral notes and an "enlivening backbone of acidity. Clarke agrees with Jancis Robinson that well made examples have the potential to develop with age but believes that the wines tend to be at their best when "young and fresh". Italian wine writer Victor Hazan, husband of the Italian cookbook writer Marcella Hazan, recommends consuming sweet examples of Verduzzo, such as Ramandolo, at between three to four years after the vintage date.