Understand the vineyard and let it express itself…
When I started cultivating the vineyards left to us by the ancients, I was still unable to understand the nature that was before me. I was afraid of forcing it and not respecting it. I didn’t have a guide, and yet I knew that the vineyards were speaking to me, even though I couldn’t understand them yet.
Where should I turn? Inside I wondered to myself: the grapes have colour, taste and aroma. All this is given by light and heat which is transformed into matter and gives the grapes their quality. Then man intervenes, with his knowledge and instinct. Man enters the vineyard and tries to understand the plants that express themselves in different ways. Understanding a plant is like getting to know a person, because every action done on the plant produces a reaction. This reaction, if it is a positive one, enables us to understand how to go on, how to make it grow and enjoy its maturity.
It was the discovery of a creative process. And creativity is the soul of the artistic work that I have been faced with in the past and am still faced with today. I understood that I would have only found my path by bringing artistic work into the vineyard. I gradually realised that it was there that I could fulfil myself because nature is sincere, generous and doesn’t need pretence or words. Just like art, if it is real.
I got to know other vine growers who had already rejected pretence in the past and had gone down the road of cultivating while completely respecting nature, usually referred to as organic. This exchange of experiences opened my eyes. I caught a glimpse of the details that had eluded me before, because others, real pioneers of wine-growing knowledge, showed them to me. Today I know that giving our wines personality doesn’t just mean getting healthy ripe grapes from the vineyard terrain, but man’s intervention is important too and without his commitment nothing is real.Our 17 hectares of vineyard, which are about to be totally converted to organic viticulture, are divided into four vineyards. Each one has its own special characteristics and qualities. The aim we set ourselves every day is simple but hard: to let each of these vineyards express itself according to its authenticity and to extract all the possible distinctive features.