Умани Ронки

Марке · Италия

Umani Ronchi began at the end of the 1950s, when Gino Umani Ronchi revived a small farm in Cupramontana, in the Verdicchio Classico appellation. A few years later the winery passed to the Bianchi-Bernetti family, who acquired the brand and the properties and brought an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit to the venture. Massimo Bernetti led the winery with vision and foresight, concentrating on three goals: expanding market share abroad (particularly in Germany and the United Kingdom), increasing production by adding Rosso Conero to the range, and enlarging the vineyards, which he gradually grew to more than 200 hectares across the Marche and Abruzzo. In the same period Massimo Bernetti chose to focus on the entire production chain, improving it and broadening the range of wines, starting with the reds — Rosso Conero above all. 1985 brought the first vintage of the prestigious Cùmaro. The winery also continued to develop its traditional Verdicchio, with riservas produced from selected vineyards: Casal di Serra was created in 1983, and 1985 was the first vintage of the Verdicchio Villa Bianchi. In the early 1990s Massimo was joined by his son Michele, freshly graduated in economics and business and just back from an internship in London, where he had worked in the sales department of Umani Ronchi's British distributor. It was then that Massimo decided to explore modern viticulture and winemaking techniques in greater depth, partly through collaboration with experts from major university research centres. So began Michele's season. With experience reaching beyond the region's borders, he chose to partner with Giacomo Tachis, the accomplished oenologist known for landmark wines such as Solaia and Sassicaia. In 1994, after a thorough study of international varieties and how to integrate them into the local terroir, the collaboration produced Pelago — a wine that went on to win the top gold medal at London's International Wine Challenge. The award put Umani Ronchi in the international spotlight, and shortly afterwards the wine was ranked among Wine Enthusiast's 100 best wines of 1998 with a score of 97/100. In 2000 La Botaia, a new cellar for ageing wine in bottle, was opened as part of a wider renovation of the winery in Osimo. Michele and his technical team continually refine the wines, adding new products and giving painstaking attention to existing ones — in a fiercely competitive market, at home and abroad, uncompromising quality and a distinct identity are paramount. The gold medal won by Cùmaro 2004 at Decanter, and the Gambero Rosso White Wine of the Year award for Verdicchio Vecchie Vigne 2009, testify to this unceasing work in favour of local wines. Today Michele combines running the winery and the estates with developing markets abroad. The result is that Umani Ronchi has become a genuinely international brand and a symbol of Italian excellence. In 2015 Michele Bernetti was named "Wine Ambassador of the Marche" at the Milan Expo — an honour that coincided with the organic conversion and certification of all the vineyards. In 2020 Umani Ronchi was ranked by Wine Spectator among the 34 top wineries in Italy. In 2023 Umani Ronchi received Gambero Rosso's special award "Winery of the Year 2024", together with its first Tre Bicchieri ("three glasses", the guide's highest rating) for its Verdicchio Historical 2018.