Alberto Burzi

Burzi was the very first winemaker we added to our catalogue, so we are very fond of him. His historic vineyards, inherited from his grandfather, are in the heart of La Morra, the most prestigious spot for winemaking in Piedmont. Burzi dedication to his vines knows no bounds, all seven hectares of Guyot vines are organically grown, pruned and harvested by hand.

In the cellar, twenty-thousand bottles are produced per year, following the most traditional method of Barolo vinification with extended macerations and ageing in large used Austrian casks. The result are wines of great intensity and personality, that speak of the bond between land and vine.

A parcel of 90 year-old vines planted by Alberto’s grandfather, was leased for decades to Roberto Voerzio and Silvio Grasso and today produces Burzi’s single-cru Barolo Capalot: Alberto’s star wine which is already picking up a fiercely loyal collector following—we have open bets on him becoming the next ‘Barolo Boy’.

Alberto Oggero

Alberto Oggero can only be described by using his own words:

"My grandfather always told me I was hasty. When I started to make wine I understood that I was no longer in control of time. Planting new vines means being able to sell their fruit seven years later; that’s nature’s rhythm, and you have to make peace with it if you want to work with it. I soon understood that making wine would be my life’s work, and started to build my own vineyard.
My priority has always been making wine in the most territorial way possible, recovering old vines, and turning the grapes into wine in the cellar that belonged to my grandfather Sandro.‎
We’re all ready to put our hands in the earth and the must, but also to drink a glass of wine together at the end of the day, in every season."

Nino Barraco

On a corner of western Sicily stands the vineyard of one of the island's most talented and authentic winemakers, Nino Barraco. Now respected all throughout Italy, Nino favors at all stages of his work an artisanal approach, full of common sense. He talks about his wines with disarming simplicity, with the confidence of a vigneron that believes in his work and in his intuition.

All of Nino's wines are made from Sicilian indigenous grapes in purity — fermentation is spontaneous and with no added yeast, and the wines are aged almost exclusively in steel to help preserve the varietal notes of each grape.

Nino’s are the most stunning vineyards we have visited, on sand dunes that end directly at sea. The black sandy soils are rich in organic elements, to preserve the vitality of the soil, zero pesticides are used. Life and biodiversity are enhanced among the rows of grapes, to develop a model of sustainable viticulture without the use of chemicals in the vineyard.

The result is wines that are marine, Mediterranean, and above all fine, elegant and gluttonous.

Bonavita

Giovanni takes his time to create his wines.

He tends to his vineyards with that ancient knowledge of those who were raised by the humble farmers, the ones that made wine by instinct and for pleasure.

His vineyards sit on the mountains that overlook the Strait of Messina, where the sea currents are dangerous and the strong winds protect the grapes from the summer heat. The land belonged to his father—and to his grandfather before that—and has been cultivated in natural since the start.

When you drink Giovanni’s wines you taste all of this…his heritage, his past, his reverence for the land, but also the work that his father and grandfather poured into this magical corner of Sicily.

So he takes his time to create his wines. After all, he learnt from the best.

Careglio

I Carpini

"Knowing how to wait for the exact moment to pick the fruit, to squeeze it, to decide when and how to transform it first into must and then into wine. Watching over the conditions in which, over a long period of time, matures and refines until it becomes one of our wines, asking it, at this point, to enter the bottle and leave the places where it was born and grew up, ready to meet the world.

I was not born a winemaker, but by choice it has become my life.

From the hustle and bustle of modern times in which I was raised, I have learned how fundamental it is for a winemaker to be able to observe, wait and watch over everything that surrounds them: nature."

Halarà

First of all, it is a project, a philosophy of life, an idea born in Greece during a holiday of 6 incredible winemakers who together decided to become the custodians of a teeny vineyard, planted with an almost extinct grape, that risked being lost forever.

Halarà is the dream of all artisan wine lovers: to see 6 superb winemakers work together and even more so to taste the expression of their friendship.

Masseria del Pino

Driving down the dusty road to Masseria del Pino, Cesare and Federica’s little farm on the volcano's northern slope, it is hard to tell which century we are living in. This is Etna in all its pastoral serenity, with only the sights, scents, and sounds of the mountain to stimulate the senses. This simple, peaceful lifestyle is precisely what the couple envisioned when they settled here in 2005. They renovated the property’s ancient palmento, a traditional farmhouse featuring an old press and large fermentation vats made of lava stone, and began to work the two hectares of 120-year-old pre-phylloxera vines and olive trees, according to organic and biodynamic principles. These primitive techniques have changed little since vines first appeared in Contrada Pino in the ninth century—one can imagine this is what the wine might have tasted like back then—recent archaeological studies of viticultural practices on Etna have only reinforced their view that the ancient ways of making wine here remain the best.

Azienda Agricola Francesco Modica

The story of the winery begins in the 1960s, when Nonno Ciccio and Nonna Peppina fall in love with this small vineyard surrounded by chestnut and olive trees.

Today, Salvatore and Maria Domenica take care of the land following the traditional taught by their parents and grandparents. The wines born out of this labour of love are natural, unfiltered, and virtually sulfite-free. Made in a traditional Palmento, they feel true and wise, and tell stories of ancient times.

Visiting Nonno Ciccio's vineyards is always very moving—you can't help but imagine all the stories, true and made up, all the myths and legends that characterise the land. This passion is most evident in Salvatore. His work is a legacy is embued with a sense of responsibility for this land and for those who worked it before him, for the great landscape and the essence of these wines. His intention is to give life to a wine that is genuine and natural, that lets the grape express itself. To us, it speaks of ancestral memories and of the pleasure of things done well.

Nicola Gatta

Nicola Gatta is the wizard of Franciacorta. On the limestone hills of Gussago, he redefines the rules of Metodo Classico winemaking. In the vineyard and in the cellars he follows the principles of Biodynamic winemaking and vinifies by spontaneous fermentation, though the indigenous yeasts naturally present in grapes—nothing else.

Nicola's wines are unfiltered, unclarified, and contain no added sulfites. Just the grapes and the terroir expressing themselves.

Nicola’s vines grow on the rolling hills of Gussago, where the soils are ancient and marine, and characterised by the strong presence of limestone. The roots grow in a caustic environment, not a fertile one, and in a climate with continuous temperature changes. This forces the plant to compensate and find alternative solutions—here is where the unique personality of the vines shines through. Their fruit is the concentrates great aromas and an accentuated minerality.

On more conventional, fertile soil, the vines have it easy! They never find the need to develop this individuality.

Spuches

On the northern slope of Mount Etna sits a vineyard owned and run by brothers Valerio and Renzo. They are some of the newest vignerons in the area, but the story of the vines on their little plot of land begins decades ago from the passion of their grandparents Vincenzo and Nunziata.

In 1958, after many years in South America, Vincenzo and Nunziata buy 8 hectares of wild volcanic land, and devote their lives to cultivating the fertile but unforgiving soil. Their dream was to grow grapes. Out of the 8 hectare plot, only 2.7 are vineyards, which Vincenzo tended to until he was 93 years old, when he decided to pass the land down to his grandchildren.

Today, Valerio and Renzo run a micro-production of 4.5k bottles a year. A true gem of the Etna terroir.

The vines are all indigenous and planted following the curvature of the plot. Influenced by the ethos of their grandparents, Valerio and Renzo intervene only when necessary.

Dotted around the vineyard are massive volcanic rocks spat out in past eruptions, Broom brushes and many wildflowers.

The oldest vines are more than 90 years old, and they live alongside much recently planted vines. Spuches' production is tiny: only 4500 bottles/year. It's one of the reasons why we adore these wines and feel so lucky to bring them to you.

Stefano Amerighi

Stefano views the farm as a complex holistic system. As such he employs six people year-round to follow the cycles of nature. He has fruit trees (200 different heirloom varieties), various grains, olives, Chianina cattle, pigs, geese, and hens. He is maniacal about low-impact farming.

Stefano says, "if it’s wet we don’t use the tractor, but rather a backpack pump sprayer—two or three treatments a year are done completely manually, like one hundred years ago. Usually, we work the rows in an alternating fashion—one ‘on’ and one ‘off.’ In the ‘off ’ rows, we don’t work them or even step on for a year, not even for treatments.”

In the vineyard and in the cellar, the lunar cycle dictates the rhythm of every process. Stefano's ethics include the total absence of corrective measures, the grapes are pressed by foot, old-fashioned way, rendering this wine a true reflection of the grapes in their vintage year.

He's also one of six winemakers collaborating at Halara' in Marsala, a one-hectare vineyard planted to Parpato and Catarratto.

Tenute Bosco

Tenute Bosco is a woman-led winery on the Northern slope of Mount Etna—10 hectares of organically-grown vineyards at about 700m above sea level.

The 'contrada' (Sicilian for hamlet) was shaped in the 1600s by a historical 'colata lavica', an eruption in the form of a slow flow of lava, remembered to this day because of its magnitude and destructive power.

With time, along the margins of the hardened lava, the soil became dark, soft, and extraordinarily fertile. In the 1800s local farmers began to shape the land into the classic terraced structure now so characteristic of Etna and plant wine on this magically fertile sand.

Tenute Bosco's oldest vines, planted at the end of the 1800s, have survived Phylloxera, and grow alberello style on land recovered on the sandy margins of this lava flow.

The youngest wines grow espalier style on these terraced plots framed by traditional dry stone walls.

Winemaking on this ‘contrada’ is exclusively manual. Traditionally, the vines were planted in a scattered fashion, and it takes a wise hand to know which variety is which during harvest.