Manifest

This winery was founded as an aesthetic need primarily, before ethical and social reasons, even before the rediscovery of family ties, yet at the same time, it is an act of gratitude. Vineyards run in my family’s veins and I remember well the grape harvests from when I was very young. I have strong memories of my Grandfather pressing grapes under a pergola and of my uncle working industriously in the midst of odorous chestnut barrels. The cultivation of the vines spanned the changing of the seasons and the phases of the moon. My Father, on the other hand, dedicated himself to cutting wine and making sparkling, neither of which were less daring or spontaneous.

As for myself, as an adolescent I became acquainted with a few of the costliest wines in the world, thanks to a passionate wine collector. I then started to gain experience, thirty years ago, in renowned wineries of France then Germany, Piedmont, Tuscany and the Veneto region. Initially to learn and acquire, then more frequently to help and then because my skills were requested.

Many people have fed, inspired and constructed my love of viticulture, for wine and the values it represents. These people were as profound and authentic as they were difficult and un-complacent. Despite the fact that these people are no longer with us, their aphorisms often echo through my mind. Herein lies the gratitude that is one of the elements that pushed me to bind myself to a winery, in a specific place, to a specific community. Wine has given me much, not just experience and a knowledge of the world, but also an occasion to reflect and maybe better myself. Wine has also perhaps given me too much, to the point that for the past thirty years I have been able to avoid basing my occupation on it. I have now stopped avoiding it and I have resolved myself to now give back at least a small part of that which I have received.

Even today, I owe much to all those who, just by giving me their affection or friendship, help me along this not always simple path. Even though sometimes one has the feeling of being alone, he often finds himself in the midst of others. Wine is community, a connection with others, not just an unrealistic individual search. Wine isn’t solipsism. Every winery is a small community that is spontaneously founded within a larger community.

A village means not being alone, knowing that in the people, plants, trees, there is something of your own, that, even when you are no longer there, remains and awaits you.

Wine making is therefore not even just a discourse with nature of which man is a part, despite efforts to relatively connect a cultural product to the alleged spontaneity of specific processes: I recall the scent of ‘boiled cabbages’ held in ‘spontaneous’ German wines more than twenty years ago, the producer that used indigenous fermentation methods that didn’t smell was looked upon with much suspicion.

However, the so called ‘natural’ approach has been a portentous and precious communication tool even for authentic wine artisans, not least because this virtuous practice has been researched and shared (sometimes, however in a slightly esoteric way). It has taken more than twenty years of waiting patiently however, to hear affirmations that it isn’t the defects or particular work processes that make a wine ‘natural’. This is a term that is frequently used in the food industry for any transformed product. The same thing has happened to the term ‘artisanal’

Wine making is a journey that often puts one under discussion.
Maybe it is even for this reason that for so many years I also tried not to have wine as an ‘occupation’, despite not abstaining from looking deeply into the subject: nullo die sine vino (not a day without wine). It especially didn’t stop me from experimenting with it. Life gave me an extraordinary and rapid possibility to expand experiences and memories, travelling tens of thousands of kilometres and tasting many centuries of wines: Bourgogne, Bordeaux, Barolo, Riesling, Brunello, Madeira, Porto, especially from the best producers. All this gave me the possibility to refine an aesthetic of wine linked to various techniques; or at least to orient the production towards a wine that would be pleasurable for myself: aiming to represent the patrimonial of experience entrusted in me. With my winery I have been able to push myself much further than would have been possible in someone else’s vineyard or wine cellar.

Someone used to like saying that wine is a memorial adventure. Well, my starting point was from memories, from the idea and the flavour of wine, at first searched for through blending wine in the last century and then pursued with the observation and organisation of viticulture in this century, with an ever present dialogue with those who have dedicated their lives to the same thing.

I have always believed that the wine must reflect the grape, the pure transparent flavour of the grape brought to its optimal maturity for a quality wine. This belief has accompanied me for thirty years.

Quality, as understood by this winery, cannot be considered from anything other than a very low yield: between 7 and 25 quintals per hectare of grape, or between 4 and 15 hectolitres per hectare of wine. These figures for most winegrowers are unreasonable. However, I estimate that such a meagre yield per plant, rather, per bunch, and their health, is the base of a high-quality wine: and not the base of a wine that is too alcoholic, as is often mistakenly thought. My grapes reach an alcohol level of 14 percent even though they are among the last to be harvested and with yields significantly lower than those that can even reach 16 percent of alcohol in the same vintages.

This is possible due to the fact that these yields are sought after by completely respecting the vegetative productive balance of the vineyard. They are achieved by simply respecting the ecosystem, the surrounding community, by not depriving the soil of biological quality or organic substances: by not compacting, scalding or dissecting it. This cannot be achieved by withering away the soil then having to fertilise it, or rather fertigate it, as the late Mario Incisa della Rocchetta stated.

For years we have heard much talk of biodiversity, planting mustard amongst the vineyards in the process of green manure with species that are certainly not indigenous. At the same time, however, most of the Earth’s mammals are now animals that feed humans and most of birds are poultry. The number of insects has dropped drastically in the last ten years. Vast areas of woodland are destroyed to make space for intensive animal farming - using the majority of antibiotics currently on sale - and to grow soya used to feed these animals – where antibiotic resistance is therefore also being bred. All this, while the Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that the quantity of greenhouse gas that is produced by livestock is equal to the emissions from all transportation in the world. Furthermore, in many countries, waste from intensive farming is the main cause of water pollution. An environmental disaster without proportions.

The soil should be nourished more than animals or crops.

It therefore seems more opportune to encounter biodiversity in the micro and meso fauna, in other words, billions of tiny living things that make up the most important components of the soil. In fact, the soil harbours in the first five centimetres 90 percent of the biodiversity on the planet in terms of living organisms. After all, as someone once said, there are more microorganisms in one metre square of soil than stars in the sky.

This winery uses the process of spontaneous grassing of the vineyard that preserves these organisms, or rather, it favours their complex interactions within the structuring of the soil, also rendering it less vulnerable to erosion.

The microorganisms bring nutrients to the plants and facilitate the decomposition of crop residues. They also favour the increase of space within the soil subsequently increasing the activity of aerobes and the speed in which organic substances are broken down. Moreover, the mechanical moving of soil particles by the microorganisms within it has a positive effect on water retention, percolation and the development of the rhizosphere, that is, in the living world around the roots of the vines.

The interactions between the various organisms have decisive effects, not only on the quality of the agricultural production but also on the occurrence of parasite attacks and plant diseases. Therefore, a communal approach - not a monocultural approach - becomes fundamental.

Of course by using the spontaneous grassing method insects also benefit. Butterflies and other pollinators benefit and subsequently the birds that feed on them. The whole ecosystem benefits.

Despite the fact that over the past two centuries one third of Earth’s trees have been cut down, plants are still the most numerous and oldest community on the planet, devoid of any forms of hierarchy, unlike humans. Furthermore, while animals represent around 0.3 percent of global biomass, plants represent around 82 percent of biomass. They have therefore been defined as ‘the engine of life’.

Around two thirds of the world’s agricultural land are at risk from pesticide pollution, and one third, of which the largest part is European, is at a high risk. We have forgotten that ninety-five percent of our food comes from the soil.

This winery, while using only copper and sulphur (mostly in liquid form), algae and herbs, propolis and fungi, to preserve the health of its plants, is not interested in labels or registered trademarks that help our agricultural management to be better recognised or traded. I certainly don’t lay any blame with those that do this. Indeed, I assume that these associations behind the trademarks have favoured greater attention to a healthier viticulture. They doubtlessly capture the attention of their buyers. If, however, I want to coin a phrase that sums up my vision of community and social agriculture it would have to be: ‘the ecology of good wine’.

This involves abstaining from ‘working’ the soil that is left grassy, as was already said, and refraining from cutting the tops of the vines or defoliating without reference to cardinal points. Also, by avoiding late removal of sterile canes or fertilisation in general and by obviously not using any systemic products. By not doing all the aforementioned things entails being in the vineyards almost daily for nine months of the year.

This can only happen, for my estate, with a scant number of hectares: to date nearly 6 hectares, in 6 vineyards that are quite close to each other. However, this is from a purely topographical point of view since they are very distant from a pedological and organoleptic point of view.

From 3 ha of old vineyards in 2020 I produced no more than 30 hectolitres of wine in total. That is to say, a mere fraction of what each vineyard produced every year before I adopted them.

Irpinia is a territory that occupies around 2,800 Km², two thirds of which are covered by mountains and the other third by hills. I came by it not only due to patriotic reasons (half of my family come from the Campania region and I have an autochthonous surname), but due to the quality of this terroir, a place of excellence in which to put into practice a similar viticulture: with the idea of producing a red wine with longevity, powerful yet at the same time fresh, balanced yet complex. Above all, a fine wine. This is possible especially in the Alta Valler del Calore Irpino (Upper Valley of the river Calore Irpino), where south ideally meets north: an area as mountainous as hilly, where the geological characteristics and microclimate, at the mercy of an incredible range of temperatures - sometimes a difference of 20 degrees centigrade between day and night- allow for a viticulture that is difficult to find elsewhere.

A viticulture that doesn’t need irrigation (not an unimportant fact in my opinion), that gives life to the tardiest grape in Italy, that suffers less from the effects of climate change than other grapes. We are talking about the Aglianico, a stubborn and apparently unsociable grape variety that is yet able to provide priceless emotions.

This variety has a unique vegetative cycle, that takes an extraordinarily long time above all in our area: from the bud break in April to the harvest that happens in November. The Aglianico becomes mature when most other varieties in Italy have already been harvested or vinified: proving itself to be the only variety in the world to ripen, yet not over- ripen or be affected by noble rot, about seven months after the bud break. All this only happens in the Alta Valle del Calore Irpino.

The Aglianico has a unique genetic identity, distant from any other varietal or family of grapes. The Aglianico is one of very few varieties at the genetic root of the extraordinary ampelographic diversity in Italy, that without doubt has the richest variety of vines in the world: one sixth Italian vines are from the Campania region. Therefore, the Aglianico is a vine rooted in the history of viticulture.

Irpinia is a wonderful land, full of industrious people that made me feel immediately at home. A land of strong relationships: where words are ‘donated’ and have an earthy value.

Does it make any sense in believing in something other than the Earth? We don’t inherit the Earth from our fathers, we borrow it from our children.

The formation of the soil is a very long process, as to obtain just five centimetres of fertile land we need around one thousand years. It is calculated, however, that in Italy we lose 120 metre² of soil every sixty seconds: covered by cement, asphalt or other artificial materials. The consummation of the soil is moving at a pace of two metre² per second, even though cities represent less than two percent of emerged land. Of this two percent, where over the past fifty years eighty percent of the population has moved to, comes eighty percent of the world’s carbon dioxide, eighty percent of its refuse and eighty percent consummation of its resources.

Moreover, although the production of cement alone significantly effects carbon dioxide which is one of the main causes of the ever more evident climate change and global warming, there are industrialised countries that still today produce in a year the amount of cement that other used in the last century.

Soil, though cultivated, is fundamental for storing carbon that has an essential role in the equilibriums that regulate the greenhouse effect. In the space of one generation, also due to the abandonment of the countryside, we have lost one fourth of our agricultural land.

Land occupation, or rather the use of land, will be fundamental in determining the survival of ecosystems on our planet.

The social aspects of agriculture, especially in a hinterland that has never been fully developed such as Irpinia, were for me decisive.

Thus in 2019, in the village of Paternopoli, I bought some contiguous particles, together with the ancient perennial forest that borders them at around 430 metres above sea level: where I planted a new vineyard and I excavated a small wine cellar. These south facing particles, although historically planted with vines, were temporarily used as arable land. They are located above one of the most unusual geological formations of Irpinia

This is the so-called red flysch that dates back to 80 to 25 million years ago. This formation is characterised by the prevalence of limestone belonging to an ancient carbonate escarpment connected to the pelagic basin, or rather, a coastal wall. The topsoil is calcareous clay which is rich in stony deposits and volcanic ash that came from ancient eruptions, interspersed with layers of silt or sand. Completely different from the areas in which the various old vineyards are found, in which I started production. These are 100 meters above sea level higher (around 530 metres) and located in several districts that are historically considered to be the best suited to viticulture. They offer excellent health conditions for the vines thanks to the considerable ventilation and valuable sun exposure - the best in the Alta Valler del Calore Irpino - as well as a sublime ripening of the grape skin. This is a geologically much younger area, dating back to 5 to 2.5 million years ago with remains of molluscs and deposits that document the fact that it was once a submerged beach. The soil is rich in stone deposits but more so with volcanic components, stony in different ways and more compact: marly, silty clays interspersed with litharenite. Sometimes the soil is more calcareous, at others more tuffaceous.

Any failures in these vineyards are replanted annually with our mass selection from local pre-phylloxera vines, that I graft onto American rootstock directly in the fields.

However much of a paradox it may seem, it is not in the vineyard but rather in the wine cellar that I feel most exposed to the risks and variables linked to my choices: with spontaneous vinification, without the adding of yeasts or nutrients or bacteria; with the punching down and manual pumping in open vats, especially during the evening or night; with the seemingly infinite submerged cap macerations and the racking done by hand and without auger; with the decanting and the generous topping up for which the actual wine never seems to be enough; with the spontaneous malolactic fermentation that struggles for months then is miraculously accomplished during one week in August.

I am inspired by the Earth’s vital rhythm, to the evident yet unknown cycle to which the Earth is linked, of which the moon phases are an indicator. The moon does not determine this cycle, as some have propagated for years. The moon does not determine the rhythm of the Earth, rather it signals and manifests it.

The variability of tasting does not escape this pace that, said, without filters just like my wine, constantly places a person face to face with their own limits.

The relationship one has with wine is authentic, a relationship that follows a path with a subject that is something other than a ‘finished product’. It is, in fact, never finished, not even when it is bottled: wine is an entity that continues to live, and within this process the relationship with the entire community is expressed, from the smallest microorganisms that it is formed from to the macro organisms (humans) that by drinking it make it ‘part of their very being’, and subconsciously introject it. Making wine, therefore, means sustaining a continuous relationship between oneself and a subject/ living thing that gradually unfolds: inducing even oneself to listen and to welcome the expressions of the other.

I do not inoculate my wine in any way; I do not use oenological adjuvants or filters. Sometimes I even neglect analyses, given that not infrequently they contain ‘numbers’, that is, unexplained data to some of the most experienced professionals.

I therefore rely entirely on ‘sun and soil juice’, as I am able to obtain it: that is, by undertaking very many selectional and observational operations, hoping they will provide us with quintessential fresh fruit and wine, not embellished with tannins, nor retouched or embossed by invasive oenological methods. I yearn for the purest fruit.

I use viticultural methods that, especially in Irpinia and with Aglianico, allow me to wait till the grape unveils, not only its ripe self but also a sublime skin: avoiding an excess of sugary sweetness (then subsequently alcohol) to hasten or determine the moment of harvest.

Twenty-five years ago, I met someone who had become a kind of viticulture guru, a witty and capable elderly French man who often indulged in passing proud judgements, whose wines became cult objects and well as being sold at auction. On one visit to him he addressed me saying: ‘you need a lot of money to make a great wine’. That phrase was burnt into my mind. So much so that I still ask myself how much does it really actually cost just to try to make a good wine.

I harvest separately, not just vineyard by vineyard, but also row by row if necessary: putting off collecting those bunches that do not seem ready to us and sometimes worrying terribly after one hundred millimetres of rain, that is, after a terrible storm.

Harvest after harvest I de-stem the grapes without crushing them and, together with 6 very careful collaborators, inspect each berry over the sorting table before fermenting and macerating it whole bunch for months. Then I use a slow vertical press that is paradoxically set at ‘zero pressure’, basically doing a ‘late crush’ with the racked grapes. The wine therefore remains ‘un-pressed’, firstly in wooden vats then in barrels, that is in suitably thick, ultra- seasoned oak, that is never toasted. The fact that the wood is not toasted, while providing a higher polyphenolic content to the wine, brings a lower aromatic contribution: especially of smoky, vanilla or clove notes- depending on the level of toasting - which we do not seek at all. I also have a pair of large amphorae that are ceramic, not clay and certainly not in terracotta, which I do however prefer rather than steel or vitrified cement: the difference being that ceramic is permeable to oxygen in a comparable way (even if slightly inferior) to wood. The thermal insulation properties of ceramic are superior to those of cement. I believe, as already mentioned, that wine is a living element that must be allowed to ‘breathe’ as well as mature for the necessary number of years without oxidising. This winery intends to bottle it when it is fully matured.

Not that all of this is a recipe for us.

I actually do not believe in recipes but in a continual dialogue with the world around us: the vineyard, the must, the wine, the community. One needs to experiment, to interpret. Experimenting comes from a continuous ability to listen, hear and from a meticulous observation that is linked to experience; but also in the ability to step back and not delude oneself of having found the essential formula after the deterministic blunders of any kind of experimentation. I still have many doubts, I certainly have more than when I started.