On the way up to La Fornace in the hills above San Giustino Rossana told me that the Adreani family were once featured in a Nutella television ad. Perfect, I thought. When we first visited in 2014, I took this photo of their fun and photogenic family. But we hadn’t been back in a few years. I wondered what had changed besides those kids growing up.
Some things were the same: they still produce only one wine, a red, made of Sangiovese, Merlot, Colorino, and Petit Verdon grapes, and they bring out a vintage every two years. They still distribute only to towns in the north—Anghiari, Sansepolcro, San Giustino, and Città di Castello. The winemaker is still the father in the family, Alessandro Adreani, a sommelier who has an optical shop in Sansepolcro; his wife Lorenza Caraffini sells real estate.
But there has been a major change: the oldest son Corrado is now running the winery and he is bringing new energy and marketing ideas to a company which began in 1969, the dream of Lorenza’s father Ezio, the guiding spirit of the winery and to whom it is dedicated.
When we asked Corrado how the winery has fared during these pandemic years, he responded that the down time has actually been good for them, allowing La Fornace to expand in ways they had no time for in the past.
They bought an old vineyard in the nearby borgo of Sant’Anastasio, bringing the total number of hectares to three. They don’t know what the old grape varieties are and won’t find out till harvest time. Currently La Fornace produces fewer than 2,000 bottles every two years. They want to increase that number in the future so they are looking forward to discovering what they’ve bought!
Corrado has applied to the region for a grant to expand in other ways, too–remodeling the cantina, adding a tasting room, and he has changed the wine label and website. He studied economics at the university in Perugia, and wrote his thesis about the territory. He feels the Upper Tiber Valley is not being correctly publicized and wants to market it more effectively.
Casa Vinicola La Fornace
Loc. Fornace Nuova 3, San Giustino (PG)
340 1166401
The Wine Girls are currently visiting all the wineries in the Upper Tiber Valley for our new guidebook. We hope to have it available by Christmas.
Last week Rossana and I got together for lunch and decided to start writing about local wine again. For her, 2016 was a year of travel and work, selling wine for La Palèrna—in Burgundy, Finland, England, Luxembourg, and up and down the Italian peninsula. I stayed close to home here in Umbria, converting my stable into living quarters, and now it’s done.
On a wintry day in December we drove down to Panicarola, a village near Castiglion del Lago, on the south shore of Lago Trasimeno. It can be foggy and mysterious around the lake and that day was no exception, but we were greeted with warmth by Sabrina Morami, the dynamic and personable young entrepreneur whose winery bears her name.
Young Sabrina’s degree was in political science but with the encouragement of her mother and father she changed gears and took on this new venture, first restoring eight apartments to create an agriturismo and modernizing the farm buildings. Next she renewed a thirty year old vineyard. Currently the farm produces vegetables, fruit, olive oil, walnut and cherry woods for furniture making, and on 11 hectares (27 acres), wine.
Cardissa, Chardonnay for a celebration
So in September we drove south to the hills above Orvieto where we met up with Renato Montagnolo, the former mayor of Montegabbione. We wanted to see the centuries-old vines which have given impetus to a reclamation project begun in 2012, “Terra della Vicciuta”, Land of the Vicciuta, the climbing vines. If all goes well, the fruit of these precious plants could give a boost to the local economy of the Alto Orvietano.
Renato explained that “vicciuta” is the term chosen for vines which farmers in the past abandoned at the edge of their property, often near a ditch, perhaps because they were no longer productive. These vines were not pruned or treated to produce grapes for wine, and so they grew as Mother Nature intended: climbing everywhere, creating lots of leaves and little fruit, returning to their wild state, “marrying” with nearby trees. However, they continued to live in a marginal way as part of the economy of the property. Some produced white grapes, some black. In the last century landowners still gathered them to make a sweet, alcoholic wine. Renato told us that old people who had the opportunity to taste this wine said that it was very good.
Renato, still a dynamo in retirement, explained that for some time it was known that very old grape vines existed in the forest outside of Montegabbione, on the slopes of Monte Arale. He had seen them when he hunted in the forest. The collection of testimonies by hunters and truffle hunters was the first step in locating them, and just the beginning of a fascinating scientific project which we learned about as the day progressed.
(Near Città della Pieve, the second vicciuta vineyard will be created in 2017 by Paolo Bolla of Podere Fontesecca.) The little plants are growing slowly. In 2018 the first vinification will probably take place, and the wine assessed as to its potential.
It is a fascinating experiment and the whole of this territory bordering Tuscany and Umbria may benefit, a tribute to Renato, Professor Ghiacchè, his fellow scientists, and the seriousness of today’s Umbrian wine makers.
The Wine Girls 