Ciao! from the inordinately beautiful city of Rome
Mr. Frank Graniero and I have begun the Italian leg of our sweepingest wine tour yet. How very cool it feels to be back in the old world after so long! How incredibly lucky we count ourselves to labor in the service of passion and beauty manifested so plainly in this part of the world. It's just two days deep and already we're blissed out on the splendor of tiny Etruscan villages in Umbria (where our friend Carlo Tabarrini has picked up a new vineyard), to Tuscan vistas along the valley of Casentino, and lots of mortadella, tagliatelle, and (naturally) wine in-between. Lot's of news this week, but serendipitously our inaugural visit with Carlo at Cantina Margò coincides with the arrival of his tiny allocation of wine in New York, so let's all drink some together.
Carlo's been making wine for a long time, but he's been around it all his life. He remembers driving his grandparents' tractor around their household vineyards in Perugia at the ripe age of 5. He spent the next 40 years living in Umbria not far from his childhood home. In his 20s, he started working in a chocolate factory, which lost its charm as quickly as one might imagine, but Carlo was industrious and did the dispassionate work for 6 years in tandem with the start of his career as a winemaker. He leased vines in Sant'Enea (which he owns today) from 2002-2008, and then struck out on his own in 2009. He's been at it ever since, working biodynamically, and working without any additions, the way his grandparents and father did. These cuvées come from two original plots of 35-year-old Sangiovese, Grechetto, and Trebbiano on sand and limestone.
Yesterday marked 7 months since Carlo had seen rain in Umbria, but he was still his smiling self as a result of a new acquisition about 40 minutes up the hill in Preggio. A stunning vineyard of all these varieties along with the northern variety, Manzoni Bianco, a crossing of Riesling and Pinot Bianco. Wow this place is insanely beautiful! 600m up (400m difference from the original plots in Sant'Enea, on beautiful limestone bedrock, completely without neighbors... a lot to look forward to.
