THE BBC IN THE VINEYARD OF RIVE DI FOCARA
Article excerpt from “Il Messaggero,” 23/08/09

It is a very close connection, that between music and Italian culinary art, exemplified in one of the greatest figures, Gioachino Rossini, also known for his passion as a gourmet. This connection was highlighted by the BBC, which recently visited Pesaro with the famous English chef Rick Stein, star of numerous television programs dedicated to food and wine traditions around the world.

After the stop at the Rossini Opera Festival, Stein visited the vineyards of Fattoria Mancini, a winery owned by the family of the same name since the mid-nineteenth century. The estate extends over approximately 80 hectares, within the Monte San Bartolo Natural Park. During the BBC filming, the visit concluded with a pleasant tasting of Mancini’s most renowned wines. “Our wines,” says Luigi Mancini, who manages the estate together with his father Ettore, “in particular the two Pinot Noir Imperiale and Focara, are well represented in the United Kingdom, especially in London’s fine dining scene.”

During the visit, the English chef admired the excellence and quality of the products from the Pesaro estate, as well as the picturesque landscape of the terraced Pinot Noir vineyards in Focara, in the heart of San Bartolo. “The main red variety of the estate is Pinot Noir,” explains Luigi Mancini, who wrote an autobiography of his winery for the book Le Marche: the Garden of Wine, edited by journalist Andrea Zanfi and published by Faim Editore. “Our family has preserved the original variety of a grape imported to the area in the early 1800s by the Napoleonic administration for more than one hundred and fifty years. After two centuries of adaptation, this Pinot Noir can today be rightfully considered a local variety. In addition to the traditional red vinification, the winery has specialized for more than thirty years in producing Pinot Noir vinified as a white wine, fermented and aged in medium-toast, thick oak barrels. At our estate, we also cultivate Sangiovese, Aleatico, and Albanella.”

The BBC’s visit will be broadcast in the UK next March. “Chef Stein,” concludes Mancini, “spent more than three hours with us exploring our winery and greatly appreciated our territory.”