Fazi Battaglia was created in 1949 by the union of two families, Fazi and Battaglia, in a small cellar in the town of Cupramontana. However, it was the Angelini family, and particularly Francesco Angelini, founder of the pharmaceutical industry and mayor of Ancona, who turned this company into a historic Italian wine brand a few years later.

We owe to Angelini the unmistakeable amphora-shaped bottle, inspired by ancient Etruscan containers: a competition was announced in 1953 and won by the architect Antonio Maiocchi. They were looking for a bottle that harked back to the ancients, but with a unique shape that would make his still little-known Verdicchio immediately recognisable.

The result was the curvy amphora (which was rechristened “ the Sofia Loren ” in America), a bottle linked not just to the image of the winery, but also to a grape variety and a whole territory.

This came about thanks to his courage and insight, which can be summed up by two basic and very innovative decisions for the time: to invest in improving vineyard quality (at a time when most of Italian vinegrowing was a far cry from the culture of quality winemaking) and at the same time to strongly believe in a single grape variety, Verdicchio.

These two choices were ahead of the times and made Fazi Battaglia a symbol of the promotion of both the Marche production territory and one of Italy’s great native grape varieties.