If you know the town of Imola, you likely know it for one thing: speed. This is the home of the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, the legendary Formula 1 circuit where engines scream at 15,000 RPM and history is measured in milliseconds.

But just a few kilometers away from that asphalt temple of velocity, the Navacchia family at Tre Monti is practicing the exact opposite philosophy.

While their neighbors are obsessed with the future of engineering, Tre Monti has looked back thousands of years to the very birth of wine. For their "Vitalba" cuvée, they don't use high-tech temperature-controlled steel tanks. Instead, they imported massive, beeswax-lined clay pots (Qvevri) all the way from Georgia—the cradle of winemaking.

Buried deep in the earth, these ancient vessels allow the wine to evolve at a glacial pace. It is a quintessentially Italian contradiction: making the slowest wine possible in the fastest town around.

The 2023 Vitalba is made from Albana, Romagna's signature white grape. Albana is a thick-skinned, tough variety that has more in common with red grapes than delicate whites. Because the Navacchia family leaves the juice in contact with those skins for extended periods in the clay, the wine picks up a deep amber hue and a distinct tannic "grip."

In a blind tasting, you might actually mistake this for a light red wine. It offers a complex, savory nose of dried apricots, orange peel, and wild herbs, supported by a structural backbone that most white wines can only dream of.

This "red wine in disguise" structure makes it the ultimate gastronomic tool for the region’s rich cuisine. In Romagna, the king of cold cuts is Mortadella—rich, fatty, and studded with pistachios. A crisp Pinot Grigio would be crushed by it, but the Vitalba cuts right through the fat, its tannins scrubbing the palate clean after every bite.

We highly recommend grabbing a bottle, slicing up some high-quality Mortadella, and toasting to the irony: sometimes the best way to move forward is to hit the brakes.

Tre Monti Albana di Romagna Vitalba Anfora 2023 - $37.99