There are seven as the deadly sins but also as the days of the week. These are the distillates and liqueurs that have always been produced in the Marche region.
One for every day, because here the slow flow of life is marked by ceremonials that often close with a “small glass”.
The most noble of all, the Mistrà Varnelli, a special dry corrective sovereign anise of coffee, is the true master of conviviality. The company that produces it, the Varnelli Distillery, was founded exactly 150 years ago and was the first in the region to have obtained the license for the processing of alcoholic products.
Ancient wisdom, care of the artisan process, healthy and selected raw materials, link with the territory and respect for the environment, with an inexhaustible passion for work and an innate vocation for innovation. This, today as then, is the recipe behind the success of an entrepreneurial reality born, to be honest, as a small family business, but in a century and a half, has come to conquer the world markets in the high spirits segment.
The “Varnelli” is a unique and original product that enhances the Mediterranean tradition of aniseed liqueurs and is appreciated for its dry and strong taste that makes it very pleasant in many uses. Tasting it you enter the world of a “special taste”, difficult to describe in words. For this reason, his label has always been a phrase coined by Antonio Varnelli: “A tasting is enough for me”.
The same company also produces the Amaro Sibilla, a liqueur linked to the history and the ancient uses of the mountain territory from which it takes its name. It was invented in 1868 by Girolamo Varnelli who put to good use his great herbal experience to have a product that was also a “remedy” for the shepherds of transhumance. Even today, this bitter is obtained from a wood-fired decoction of gentian and other medicinal plants. It is sweetened exclusively with the Monti Sibillini honey and then long decanted and finished in canvas before being bottled.
But the real witness of the herbal experience of Casa Varnelli, an award-winning company now entrusted to the guidance of four women, is definitely Amaro Erborista. This excellent bitterness is obtained from a decoction, on wood-burning fire, of officinal herbs, roots and barks, among which the intense aroma of rhubarb stands out. Also sweetened with honey from the Sibillini Mountains, it is also distinguished by its characteristic opalescence. Originally intended for herbalists, it has conquered the best restaurant for its goodness and originality.
To discover the production of Distilleria Varnelli www.varnelli.it
Water and mistrà sip themselves seated in the large park of Villa Teloni, in Cesolo of San Severino Marche. The ancient noble residence is ideal for reinvigorating stays made of relaxation and tranquility.
Another historic Marches company is definitely the Meletti of Ascoli Piceno. Here, according to the heirs of this company founded in 1870, “the most noble of the classics of Italian liqueur art” is produced: Anisetta. Liqueur that comes from the distillation in discontinuous alembic of anise seeds and other aromatic spices that enhance the freshness of Mediterranean green anise.
Sweet, very pleasant, aged for the time necessary to ensure that youth with fresh distilled anise leaves room for aromaticity and bottled with the most modern techniques, the Anisetta is loved for its versatility. Inimitable and satisfying when drunk in purity, it can also be enjoyed on the rocks, with the fly (3 roasted coffee beans dipped in a glass), iced, excellent for ennobling coffee, for flavoring sweets or for enriching fruit salads. As an elongated aperitif with iced water or soda. Become the protagonist of cocktails and long drinks to amaze friends or guests of a social event.
The production of Meletti home www.meletti.it is also very rich
Enjoying the Anisetta will be a pleasure in one of the many villas or historic houses of the territory, perhaps staying in contemplation of a beautiful sunset comfortably seated in one of the beautiful parks where you can immerse yourself in reading a good book or be charmed from the company of a musical piece destined to soon become the soundtrack of an unforgettable holiday.
At Monte Gilberto you can choose Villa dei Rosmarini where you can find yourself in perfect harmony with nature thanks to the 5 hectares of park and the position of this wonderful structure placed on a small hill at the foot of the Sibillini mountains with it’s swimming pool outdoors overlooking the green hills.
In an area surrounded by mountains and hills, in the territory of Amandola, it will welcome you instead Villa Quercia with its rustic stone-exposed exteriors.
In Fano the fishermen used to warm up during the cold winter nights, but nowadays they do all the fans, they rely on Moretta – or Muréta in dialect – a tasty mix of coffee, anise liqueur, rum and brandy (or cognac), flavored with lemon peel and sugar.
His story comes from afar and has become a legend. The elders tell us that the fishermen used it to keep warm during the cold winter nights mixing the advanced funds in the bottles of different liquors but others still swear that its true origin is linked to a beautiful dark-haired girl who “stood” on the label of a Liqueur commonly used to correct coffee in city bars. There are also those who say that Fano’s most famous liqueur was born from the initiative of a wife who used to prepare a regenerating coffee for her husband, a sailor who came home after a day’s work. Today, Moretta is a symbol that evokes memories. A symbol that transmits flavors, a symbol that tells a story.
For living in Fano and its sea you can also stay at Villa Teia, an ancient summer residence of the Archbishop of Urbino, located in a position that dominates the entire Metauro’s valley. The origins of Villa Teia date back to the seventeenth century, abandoned since the end of 800. Today, after an accurate work of restoration, the building that composes the structure and its park has regained great value.
The last two liqueurs of the Marche have much lower alcohol content: the cooked wine of Loro Piceno and the wine of Visciola di Pergola.
Cooked wine is a typical product of the territory, it can be consumed as a normal table wine but is more often used as a dessert wine. There are two types of cooked wine: a dry type and a sweet one due to the presence of sugar residue.
Variable color, from red to amber red, intense and characteristic aroma, to the taste it has a body, with a caramel perception in the sweet version. Its aftertaste is very savory.
The “Occhio di Gallo” cooked wine from the cellar of David Tiberi (www.occhiodigallo.it) is extraordinary. The name given to this liqueur wine is a guarantee: in the production of cooked wine, in fact, the most important phase is aging in wooden barrels. The producers of the past said that to be ready this wine had to have the color of the eye of a rooster.
Living the countryside of these areas regenerates soul and body. How not to stay then in Villa Serena, an ancient rustic farmhouse immersed in the sweet hills of Sant’Angelo in Pontano? The structure has been restored staying true to the old farmhouse style.
To be tasted, in the Marche, also the wine of Visciola di Pergola that is obtained, following an ancient recipe, using a very particular fruit: the visciola. It is a fruit that is harvested from a wild variety of Prunus cerasus and is fermented with excellent structured red wine from the previous harvest.
Internal red color, smell of sour cherry and wild berries, good alcohol content, structure and sweet sensations is a wine that is the rest of these characteristics unmistakable.
Also known by the name of Visner, Visciolì and Visciolata di Pergola, it is appreciated as a delicious meditation nectar, to be combined with donut and dry pastries.
Around here there’s Villa Selene. The structure was an ancient country farmhouse, renovated and renovated today shows all the beauty of Fermignano and its surroundings.