You gotta love Vermentino.
Okay, so maybe you don’t have to. But if you, like me, prefer light- to medium-bodied whites that offer a catchy set of aromas, flavors and minerally textures—ones that change with the terroir and evolve with time—then what is there not to love?
Need proof? If you ever find yourself on Italy’s Ligurian coast around Genoa or nearby famous destinations like the Cinque Terre or Portofino, order some fried anchovies, calamari or a plate of spaghetti vongole with some good local Vermentino.
You will know that heaven exists.
Coastal Italy is Vermentino’s garden—particularly Liguria and Sardinia—but also Tuscany and many other places where sea meets sun. Likewise, coastal Southern France, including Corsica, also grows a lot of Vermentino, and the variety is gaining vineyard ground from Australia to California.
Still, my favorite habitat remains Liguria, where Vermentino isn’t just another grape in the portfolio, but the star.
I recently returned there to visit Cantine Lunae Bosoni—one of the most consistently high-scoring Vermentino producers in Wine Spectator’s blind tastings—which I first visited in 2016.
The Bosonis are far and away the largest and most innovative family of wine producers in the Colli di Luni appellation, which spreads over Liguria’s regional border into Tuscany and around the famed white marble quarries of Carrara.
Luni was once an important Roman port for shipping marble. The seafront has since receded more than a mile from the antique Roman site and, today, a sandy, more than mile-wide coastal plain gives way to the Alpine foothills, where the soils are stonier, with veins of schist.
“It is like three photographs of the same territory,” says Diego Bosoni, 44, who has taken on a greater role in production from his still-active father, Paolo, now 77. “By the sea, there is one character. Inland, at the base of the hills near the winery, there is a character. And up in the hills, there is another character.”
“That is the beauty of Vermentino,” he says.
Where Vermentino Grows Best
One morning, I drove with Diego through the three terroirs. We started in a vineyard by an old Roman amphitheater near what used to be the Mediterranean shore, then headed inland to the ever-so-slight slopes and then up into the hills to an altitude of about 1,000 feet.
The rugged hillsides, traversed by tiny winding roads, offer views to the coast some five miles away. There are constant breezes and little problem with fungal diseases like downy mildew that plague coastal vineyards in hot, wet vintages like this one. The vines produce small bunches with small berries that result in more concentrated flavors.
“Here, the vineyards give you more deepness, complexity and also structure,” Bosoni says. “And more ability to age over time.”
“Also here, farming organic is not difficult,” he adds. The estate is in the midst of converting all of its vineyards to organic farming and earning certification.
These high-altitude vineyards produce Lunae Bosoni’s top Vermentinos: its black label Vermentino (2021: 92 points, $40), its single-vineyard Cavagino (2021: 91 points, $50) and the 250-case, limited-edition Numero Chiuso (2018: 90 points, $80), which uses the best grapes and is aged three years in cask and bottle.
Over the last six years, the Bosonis have invested most heavily at altitude—buying and replanting about 25 acres of Vermentino in the prized vineyard area called Sarticola. Cantine Lunae now produces 50,000 cases annually from about 160 acres, and it sources grapes from 100 small producers on another 50 acres.
The Innovators of Colli di Luni
This summer, the Bosonis put the final aesthetic touches on a decade-long project: their new, sleek corten steel–and-glass winery, built into a lower vineyard slope. Over the last few years, as they moved into the new digs, they’ve had more space to experiment and launch new wines. These include Cuvée Lunae, a vintage-dated, classic-method spumante that is aged more than two years in bottle before disgorgement and release.
“It was my father’s dream for many years, and finally, when we had the space, I helped him realize it,” says Bosoni. Begun with the 2018 vintage, the wine blends Vermentino with a dose of bright Albarola, a local variety.
Meanwhile, Diego also began producing a pair of limited-edition wines with a hipster bent under his own eponymous label: a deeply golden–colored Vermentino that is fermented on its skins, called Padre Figlio (Father, Son), and a Vermentino-dominated, ancestral-method sparkling wine, called L’Incantatrice.
The family has also released the first vintages of single-variety reds from local grapes: Ciliegiolo and the rare Vermentino Nero (whose origins are disputed; the Bosonis don’t believe it is related to Vermentino).
Their 18th-century Ca’ Lunae farmhouse, down the road from the winery, serves as the winery’s base for receptions, tastings and on-site sales. On a sweltering end-of-summer evening, it was packed with tourists buying cases of bottled wine, joined by the occasional locals who bring jugs to fill up with a set of wines sold in bulk.
In another room, Diego’s sister, Debora, runs a small workshop created with their mother, Antonella, that makes fruit- and herb-infused liqueurs under the label Essentiae. By the entry, there were even bags of potatoes from Paolo’s garden for sale.
The Bosonis are a model for an enterprising artisanal family. From them, it seems, there’s always more to come.
Says Diego with a grin: “We’re working on other experiments.”
