ON NATURAL WINE
To make and to choose to drink natural wine is a decisive way of life. It is a choice that echoes many thoughts and actions. For us, to make this wine is a form of activism against the industrialization of this precious liquid. To make a natural wine today may seem a bit of a paradox; it is a revolutionary choice almost anarchistic, but simultaneously it is a conservative one that links to thousands of years. In that sense it is also on the cusp of an oenological Avant Garde.

For us, the art of winemaking crosses the borders of architecture, poetry and nature. The aim has been to obtain a grape that is alive and healthy, and to indulge in the natural processes of good winemaking that converts grapes into an honest and expressive wine. We believe our wine to be an expression of the earth and the soil in which it has grown.

 ‘making wine is a mystery to be unravelled’
Mario Soldati in Vino al Vino

The Taste, Art, Architecture of wine

The soil helps to articulate the taste of the wine. The decision to choose natural wine brings with it an extraordinary universe – full of flavour, unexpected and giving new sensations that seduce those who are curious.

To put yourself in front of a natural wine beckons an open mind – like any ‘opera di arte ‘(piece of artwork) such as an opera, music, painting etc. In this sense, winemaking is an artform and we realize the hardwork that this artwork has taken to be realised.

The architecture of wine. The construction of values, of taste. Natural wine is an undefined and explorative path. The building elements are found in nature, in the grapes, in the microorganisms of the soil. They build what eventually gets poured into your glass. Our role has simply been to give them the optimal conditions to thrive in, to be alive and in which to survive favourably and express themselves.

THE VINEYARD - LA VIGNA


The cultivation of the grape and the work in the vineyard are the most important elements in the natural winemaking process. This is where everything is born, and where it all transforms.

Our scope is to enrich the humus and improve the reception of the plants and the soil of the vital cosmic energy. It is our aim to bring healthy grapes into the cellar at the end of the harvest, the hardest work has been completed. From this stage onwards, the grapes take on the work. During the harvest weeks and thereafter, there are three important choices to be made: 1-The moment when to harvest the grapes. 2-the decision and length of time to macerate the wine using skin contact. 3-The choice of which container to keep the wine in. All these components are forms of exploration and play, and we keep on finding ways in which to continue this conversation with the wine. In our cellar, we experiment with terracotta amphoras, but also in modern steel containers. For the aging of the wine we have selected different woods to bring out the flavours of the red wine. We add only a minimum dose of sulfites to avoid oxidation, deterioration from unwanted bacteria, and to help in the ageing process. And we are learning how to create a controlled oxidation during the fermentation process, so that the wine has a long life and can travel easily to your home.

Drinking a natural wine is a conversation. It communicates, speaks, converses. The language is determined by its organoleptic characteristics, its personality, its authenticity, its vitality, for the stimuli it gives, and how it descends down the throat and interacts with our organism inside. We want our wine to have a character that is good company. It is vital for us the pleasure it gives, the trust it transmits, and how it makes an impression on you.

An authentic wine is not a stable product, but it is alive going through different phases of its life. Many say that natural wines are ‘impegniativo’. Meaning that they are challenging, or require too much attention when drank. But lets look at it from another perspective. It is a character that is alive, which we have the pleasure to sit with at the table, to meet and get to know.

ABOUT BIODYNAMICS

Natural wine comes from vineyards that are cultivated using methods that reduce climate impacts to the minimum and benefit the biodiversity. We take this a step further as we are biodynamic. Biodynamics started with Rudolf Steiner in the early 1900’s. It has many entry points and levels of practice. We have chosen to take this route because we believe in the results. We see it in the soil, and in the microorganism that meet us.

How did it all start? When did we encounter biodynamics?

One day, we went to the Steinerhögskolan - Steiner University College -  in Järna, Sweden close to Stockholm. We went primarily to see the James Turrell ‘Sky Space’ installation but for sure the following experience was something that took us down to earth. In the cantina of the college, we went to have lunch. We were served the most delicious salad. For both of us, this taste was a revelation. Morten explained that the taste was a time transporting device to his grandmother’s kitchen garden when he was a child. Could salad really taste so good? We have forgotten it in the times of mass-produced salad from the supermarket.

The Steiner salad had so many ingredients and taste sensations that stemmed from the soil, and the care given to it. So we started to look for other biodynamic products in general, which led us to biodynamic vineyards and consequently to drink only biodynamic wine, And we both noticed, that this wine both tasted better and had no side-effects. No headache, no hangover. What was going on here?

On these visits to the vineyards, we met Beppe (Giuseppe) who we now consider our mentor. He opene a door into a way of thinking, not dogmatic and rhetoric, but rather more like an all-encompassing worldview that specifically for us had to do with the treatment of the soil, the organisms, and of all lifeworlds. Biodynamics for us is not only a farming practice, but also a philosophy and a way of being.

Natural biodynamic wine is not a modified wine. Once you have drank natural wines, with time, it is difficult to drink other wines. To drink natural wine is a choice. It is a choice that signals many thresholds: care, pluriverse, a cause, a vision, a movement, wellbeing, ecosystem, curiosity, a catalyst. It is a discussion that is vivid and gives way to conversation, to debate, to learn something, and to become aware.

With biodynamic wine-making we respect the equilibrium and natural cycles of the nature. We only use a minimum amount of copper and sulphate in the necessary period and after heavy rains in order to minimize damage from mildew or other fungal forms that come with humidity. We have a minimum cutting of grass, only at certain heights to avoid the spread of mildew during humid seasons, and to avoid fires during extreme heat waves. In the fall, we seed legume cover crops, and in the spring we plant a variety of flowers for our bees and for the wines. We use natural fertilizers containing mycorrhizae which we determine together with our enolog Pietro. We invite butterflies, bees, wasps, ladybugs and other insects in the cover beds where wild flowers are welcomed. Wild chicory, phacelia, red and white clover, poppies, erba medica ‘lucerne alfalfa’, wild mint ‘nepitella’ and so forth. Each herb, grass, wildflower, has a function in the wine making. It has its own role, nutrition to give which it exchanges with the soil via its root system. As do all the organisms inside the soil. All this life around the vines participates with us in the act of making wine.

In our journey we have encountered many winemakers, and the most interesting of them have been biodynamic. A wonderful mix of philosophers, anarchists, poets and outlaws. They make you think. For sure it is in biodynamics that you find persons with knowledge, courage and passion for the wine they make. Just taste it and you will also understand the difference.  

OUR WINES

We make red, white and orange wine.

rosso, bianco, macerato 
All of them are considered a natural wine that went through a biodynamic  practice. If you look for the ‘demeter’ symbol on our wines, we are afraid it is not there. We choose not to attain certification for several reasons; a primary being that we are a small vineyard and want to demonstrate our natural wine making without the need of using marketing symbols. We trust the plants, as much as we hope those who drink our wine can trust us.

Rosso - our red wine is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carbernet Franc and Sangiovese. The wine from 2025 has the following composition: Merlot 64%, Cabernet Sauvignon 29% and Sangiovese 7%. Our cabernet Franc did not have a yield this year so we wait for her to reveal herself in the following years. We had a fermentation period fully on the skins for 10 days which gives the red a deep dark velvety red tone. You can almost touch it. In its virgin months, the taste already contains much promise of a wine that will stay long with us and we are delighted. What a discovery. Long live skin contact!

Bianco - our white wine will be a pure vermentino, but sometimes we will blend the vermentino with trebbiano and malvasia. Some of the vermentino and trebbiano plants on the land have been here for over 100 years. We drink history, together with the wine-makers that stood here before us. For 2025, we did not make a bianco wine.

Macerato - our orange wine is a blend of Vermentino, Malvasia and Trebbiano. The wine from 2025 has the following composition: Vermentino 80%, Malvasia 11% and Trebbiano 9%. We use the expression ‘macerato’ instead of orange to express the amber colour of the wine. Macerato in italian means a wine that has had skin-contact between the grape skins and juice for a specified period during fermentation. It is an ancient technique used in the past to preserve wines, but we also use it because we are passionate about the different shades of amber tones it can create. Our Vino Macerato for 2025 has had skin contact for 114 hours , approximately 4.75 days. We have placed a portion of it in the terracotta amphora, and the rest in a metal steel tank. Both taste different, both behave differently, and both have different amber tones. It is spectacular to think they were born of the same liquid.